


Kissed Me Quite Insane

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Something Beautiful But Annihilating [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Major Original Character(s), Mental Health Issues, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:13:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they first kissed in the darkness of the club, neither of them predicted this. But somehow Clara Oswald has found herself falling for the one person she shouldn't, the one person who was always off limits.</p><p>Trapped between her best friend and the person who knows her best in the universe, she has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. </p><p>Especially not when things begin to take a darker turn...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this gifset](http://copyofclara.tumblr.com/post/136723104747/when-clara-oswald-jumped-into-the-doctors), and chapter one was written in a three hour long, wine-fuelled extravaganza. 
> 
> The story occurs in an alternate universe in which Clara never had to face the raven, and features multiple Claras and the ensuing flirting/hilarity/disaster, as well as a great deal of Bi!Clara, because it's basically canon now.

The club was dark and loud, and Clara’s head throbbed painfully in time to the music as she watched a colleague gyrate against a girl who looked young enough to still be at Coal Hill. She sighed and stirred the remains of her mojito despondently, contemplating her workload and how much she would rather be at home, on the sofa, than this dingy basement club at one o’clock on a Friday night, surrounded by people who suddenly seemed impossibly young. She hadn’t wanted to go to the pub for drinks for Alex’s birthday, and when the proposal to go clubbing had been suggested, she had almost left at once, but somehow she had ended up agreeing to come, but now three cocktails later, all she had was a pounding headache and profound longing for her bed. She slid a tenner across the bar and stood, grabbing her bag and shouting a goodbye to her workmates, none of whom paid her any heed, so engrossed were they in the rigours of what apparently counted as “having a good time.”

Turning sharply on her heel, she started towards the exit but found her way impeded by a petite girl in a sparkling dress, who raised her eyebrows at the sour expression on Clara’s face and laughed delicately, her eyelids glittering with more shimmer, her mouth dark with lipstick. She contrasted sharply with Clara, in her blouse and pencil skirt, her eyes shadowed only with a lack of sleep, and her lips painted a coral shade of pink that she dimly remembered seeing some celebrity wearing.

“Wow, who died?” the girl asked teasingly, and Clara’s eyebrows raised until they mirrored the unknown’s, trying to do her best teacher expression but finding herself smiling a little instead, the girl’s charisma infecting her with energy.

“I just… sorry, long day…” Clara began to explain, drawing away a little, but the girl’s face broke into a mischievous, distantly familiar grin.

“The best cure for that is dancing, you know?” the girl asked, her tone surprisingly light, as she took Clara’s hand and led her over to the packed dance floor, ignoring Clara’s half-hearted attempts at protestation and instead starting to dance in a way that Clara dimly remembered from her university days. “C’mon! Lighten up!” the girl encouraged, reaching for Clara’s hand before pulling away sharply as their skin made contact and a spark passed between them, hot as a flame, in a way that Clara hadn’t experienced since… her heart contracted painfully and she pulled herself away from the memories, focussing on the girl in the silver dress. 

“Did you…” Clara asked in wonder, and the girl only laughed again, pulling Clara closer, and she felt herself beginning to imitate the girl’s movements as they danced, drawing increasingly close together until one of their hands was on the other’s hip, and Clara couldn’t tell where one of them began and the other ended. She could feel herself pressed against the other girl, and she wasn’t sure whether it was that or the alcohol that was making her brain fog, whether it was the heat of the club or the feeling of the other girl’s hands on her waist that made her breath hitch.

The alcohol she had consumed was suddenly making its way to her brain, and she found herself laughing for the first time that night – no, not a laugh, a giggle – and she tried to remember the last time she had felt so young and free, the last time she had felt so startlingly infinite. She was still trying to determine that, her brow scrunched a little in concentration, when the girl leant in and kissed her gently, Clara’s lips responding of their own accord. It was with sudden, undeniable certainty that Clara invested herself fully in the kiss, biting the girl’s bottom lip in a way that had always made her own breath catch, and she noted the way the girl’s eyes widened and felt a thrill she had never experienced before. Pulling away, she found herself panting for breath, and it was then that she noticed the way the girl’s pupils had dilated, the way she was looking at Clara with her eyes clouded with lust, and she found herself responding, taking the girl’s hand and tugging her outside to the street, their hands intertwining and crackling with an energy that seemed metaphysical.

Clara caught her breath as they tumbled out of the doors to the basement, the cold turning the flesh on her arms to goose pimples, but the girl only laughed, pushing her back against the wall and kissing her more aggressively. The girl began to trail kisses down the line of Clara’s jaw, sliding a small, warm hand inside Clara’s blouse and resting it on the small of her back, pulling the two of them closer together. An increasingly loud part of Clara’s brain was beginning to take hold, and as the girl’s lips met her pulse point she snarled almost imperceptibly and turned so that she was the one pinning the other girl, her teeth nipping at the girl’s neck and eliciting a quiet moan in response. 

“You wanna be in charge?” the girl asked with a doe-eyed look that somehow served only to turn Clara on further. “Is that how you want to play this?”

Clara raised an eyebrow delicately and slid her hand down to rest on the curve of the other girl’s arse, enjoying the involuntary shiver of lust that it elicited. “I thought I was clear on that?” Clara asked rhetorically, squeezing gently and watching the girl’s hips arch away from the wall, desperately seeking the friction of Clara’s touch. “Should I make myself a little more explicit?”

“Maybe…” the girl managed in a strangled gasp. “Maybe you should do… at your place…” she closed her eyes and tried to kiss Clara again, only to find her lips connecting with Clara’s fingertips.

“Say please,” Clara murmured softly, her mouth curling into a smirk, watching the other girl bite her lip and attempt to decide whether she was willing to comply or not. Very, very slowly, she began to rub small circles on the girl’s hip, and that was all it took for her resolve to melt.

“P-please…” the girl managed, and Clara met her lips with her own, kissing her fiercely before dancing away from her, tugging the girl towards a taxi, laughter bubbling from within her as she took in the driver’s startled expression as the two of them continued to kiss in the back seat, fighting for an unspoken dominance. She would normally have cursed him outright for his stares, condemned his homophobia with an unflinching honesty, but her brain was too captivated by the way the girl beside her slid her hand along her thigh, traced the seam of her stockings with her fingernails, and unhooked a suspender with a raised eyebrow that Clara understood to be chastising. 

As they tumbled out of the cab and up the stairs to her flat, she felt the stocking begin to slide down her leg, bunching at her ankle, and as they stumbled through the front door, all quick kisses and sharp teeth and urgency, she watched as the girl fell to her knees and tugged the fabric away with nimble fingers, before tilting her head up and affixing Clara with a look of lust that could’ve caused planets to burn.

“Yes?” the girl asked, already knowing the answer but seeking the knowledge of certainty, her thumbs skimming Clara’s thighs, and Clara moaned an assent, closing her eyes and allowing the sensations to overwhelm her.

 

~/~/~/~

 

Clara had never been much good at one night stands. More specifically, she’d never been much good at the morning after – whether to stay or go, when and how to throw someone out, and as for what to say? Not a clue. Waking up curled up to the mysterious girl from the night before, she felt the same crushing sense of awkwardness she’d felt for the first time back at university, and she sighed, attempting to smooth down her bed hair. Her mind flashed back to night before and she groaned inwardly, looking down at the sleeping form of the girl whose name she still didn’t know. Something nagged at Clara, some lingering sense of vague familiarity, and she appraised the girl carefully, noting the thick, dark hair, the lightly dishevelled fringe, a small nose that turned up half a degree at the tip.

As though sensing the critical nature of Clara’s gaze, the girl stirred and opened her eyes, surveying Clara with deep hazel eyes and smiling sleepily. “Morning,” she mumbled, curling up in the duvet as though she had been here a thousand times before, fixing Clara with a light smirk. “Up for round two?”

Clara had to fight to keep the smile off her face, relieved at the lack of tension between them. She pondered the offer, rolling onto her front to stare down at the girl, her eyes full of mischief. “I might be.”

“You know…” her companion mused with a smirk. “I never caught your name.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Who said romance was dead?”

“Oh, so that was your idea of romance? Shagging me senseless?” the girl countered, leaning up to kiss Clara’s jaw and throat languidly, sliding her tongue along the hollow of her collarbone.

“Senseless? I seem to recall you being an active participant.” Clara teased, and the girl responded by kissing her silent, kissing her until her head was spinning and her breathing was laboured, kissing her until all she could focus on was the aching need consuming her.

“I never said I was complaining,” she whispered. “I bet your name is as gorgeous as you.”

Clara couldn’t help but laugh at the cliché, her thoughts reforming enough to offer the necessary information. “Clara.” She said softly. “Clara Oswald.”

“Well now. I was right,” the girl said, scrunching her nose adorably. “I’m Clarissa. Clary. No one really calls me Clarissa.”

“Well, now that was not what I was expecting,” Clara admitted. “Seeing as you're posh and all, want a cuppa? Not that I make a habit of it, so feel special, milady.”

Clary laughed and Clara kissed her lightly before crossing the room and pulling on a t-shirt, padding softly to the kitchen and getting two mugs out, wondering how things would pan out and absent-mindedly biting her nails. As she filled the kettle, a pair of hands covered her eyes and she laughed. “Hey!” she exclaimed, but when Clary removed her hands, she shrieked.

There, reflected in her kitchen window, was the incontrovertible explanation for her niggling sense of familiarity.

Two Clara Oswalds blinked back at her, each equally shocked, each equally speechless.

“How did we not notice that…?” Clary managed after a moment, tilting her head a little and squinting at their reflections.

“Science proved that we can’t recognise ourselves externally. Just in photos or mirrors… it’s a… thing, apparently, so I guess… yeah. And your hair is different…” Clara explained, frowning a little.

“Oh come on, you mean my hair is _better._ God, no wonder you’re so good in bed…” Clary mused, wrapping an arm round Clara’s waist and slipping her palm under the hem. “Shagging myself, now there’s one for the grandkids…”

“Tell me that wasn’t on your bucket list,” Clara teased. “Although, I can see why it would be.”

“Yeah, I bet you would…” Clary muttered, tugging Clara’s t-shirt over her head and ignoring her half-hearted protestations. “I wanna see how identical we are, c’mon. Don’t ruin my fun.”

“With your eyes, fingers or lips?” Clara asked, half-jokingly, then catching her breath as Clary ran one hand up her stomach to cup her breast before leaning in and dragging her teeth over Clara’s bottom lip in a manner that felt deliciously distracting.

So distracted were both women that they didn’t notice the whooshing sound from the lounge, or the kitchen door opening. What they did notice was the horrified shout in a Scottish burr, followed by the Time Lord who had turned as maroon as his coat. As they broke apart, however, the blood drained from his face, and words seemed to fail him.

“I… you… ah… I… you…” he stammered. Clary stared him down with a look somewhere between horror and desire. 

“Is this your dad?” she asked Clara, a wicked smile turning up the corners of her mouth as she stalked over to him and he turned a deeper shade of maroon. “He’s sexy.”

“ _Not_ my dad.” Clara emphasised. “Friend. He’s a friend.”

“Well then,” Clary stalked forward like a predator intent on its prey. “He can join us.”

“No, no, no, a thousand times no.” Clara said firmly. “He will _not_ be joining us. Not that kind of friend. Wait in my room, OK? I’ll deal with this.”

Clary pouted and the Doctor’s eyes boggled even further as she obediently returned to the bedroom, leaving Clara alone with him.

“Can you… cover up, or something?” he asked her, and Clara suddenly remembered that she was naked, and this was the Doctor, and oh god, she was _naked._ She seized a nearby tea towel and wrapped it around herself, flushing a deep shade of crimson.

“Sorry, OK? I’m sorry, but you do need to learn to knock, like, really, knocking is a thing that actual humans do and can you please start, thanks.” She managed, trying to delay the inevitable tirade that was sure to ensue.

“Look, I don’t mind what you get up to in your spare time. Lord knows, I’m just a hobby, not your actual dad. But an echo?” his tone was incredulous, and Clara sighed. “An actual echo? How did you even _find_ her? You didn’t use the Book of Face-” 

“Face _book!_ ” Clara corrected, and the Doctor raised his eyebrows another few degrees. They were in danger of disappearing into his hair.

“You didn’t _Facebook_ them again, did you?” he asked angrily. 

“No! It was in a club… we didn’t even know until just now…” 

“Yeah, I bet you didn’t, egomaniac…” the Doctor muttered, and Clara felt her temper flare.

“I am not an egomaniac!” she shrieked, and the Doctor gave her a look that she knew all too well, and her voice went up an octave. “ _Or a control freak!"_  

It was then she noticed Clary lounging in the doorway, back in the sequinned dress, half her mouth curled up in a smirk. “That wasn’t the impression I got last night.” she said snidely, before holding a folded piece of paper out to Clara. “Your hair might be too short, but the sex was phenomenal, so call me when you’re through with your friend, OK?” She winked as Clara took the paper then disappeared down the hall, and Clara heard the front door slam.

“Don’t even think about it, Clara,” the Doctor threatened. “Don’t you _dare._ ”

Clara scowled. “Fine,” she assured him, her tone falsely contrite. “I promise. Now can you _please_ sod off so I can put some clothes on? For five minutes?”

“Oh.” The Doctor suddenly seemed to remember her mostly-naked state, and he backed into the lounge, his hands help up repentantly. “Go, go.”

Clara slipped back to her room and sat on the bed, pulling out her phone and composing a text before she could change her mind. 

_Same time next week? ;) xx_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in a day, because I'm having a flurry of inspiration and I feel like spoiling you all. Fluff and more Clara/Clary flirting... I promise the plot will develop in subsequent chapters.

When she returned to the lounge, clothed in a knee length dress with a white collar and feeling much less exposed, the Doctor was flicking through the magazines on her coffee table at a rate that made her hangover complain loudly. “Hi,” she began nervously, mentally steeling herself for the barrage of catty remarks that would inevitably follow. “I… ah…”

“No, don’t.” He cut her off and rose to his feet, trying and failing to meet her gaze with his own and instead focusing on his clasped hands, the tips of his ears turning pink. “It’s none of my business what you get up to when you’re here…”

“Correct.” Clara interjected, a hint of smugness creeping into her tone. “Absolutely none." 

“…but she’s your _echo_ , and it could be dangerous, Clara! We don’t know if there’ll be spatio-temperal side effects, or if you meeting her could cause galaxies to blow up, or whether one of you could end up disappearing. I’d advise against it, that’s all I’m saying. Or at least, I’m advising against it until you let me run some tests.” The Doctor concluded, finally looking up from his palms and surveying her with a critical look that only served to irk her further.

Clara’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as she tried to ascertain his intentions. “Tests? What kind of tests?”

“She shouldn’t be in this time, Clara! You’re here, you’re… Clara _Prime_ , there doesn’t need to be an echo of you here, and yet here she is. Doesn’t that ring alarm bells?” the Doctor gave her a more imploring look, but Clara only rolled her eyes at his misplaced concern, running through a thousand possible explanations in her head but settling for the simplest.

“Time isn’t going to melt, Doctor. She’s _just_ a girl…” 

“Your double-”

“…who I met in a club,” Clara continued, somewhat louder. “And brought home, and slept with.” 

“I think the problem was more the lack of sleeping, but I’m not the egomaniac here…” the Doctor muttered cattily, and she scowled at him, wondering whether slapping him would be unnecessary churlish. A moment’s consideration suggested another path to her, and she grinned at him, watching the confusion cloud his face at her sudden change in mood.

“Come on, like you never…” she raised her eyebrows suggestively, but the Doctor only affixed her with a mystified look. “You know. Experimented. With yourself.”

“Well, of course I have!” he assured her, and Clara was suddenly unsure whether to feel relieved or repulsed at the thought of any of her Doctors interacting in _that_ way. “My faces have worked together loads of times – we made a dimensional stabiliser together once, and…" 

Clara laughed then, cutting him off with a wave of her hand. “Not like that. Like… you know. Kissing. And things, I bet you have, you’re even more of an egomaniac than me.”

To his credit, the Doctor managed not to blush, keeping his face completely composed as he appraised her with a long look that she couldn’t quite read – and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. “Even if I had… Would I tell you?” he asked her after a moment, raising one eyebrow and smiling slightly in a way that she dimly hoped was intended to be playful. Clara gave him a look of mild horror, trying not to contemplate the who or where or how. “Look, are you going to judge me on _my_ life choices, Clara? After you and her…?”

“Alright, alright, I get it, I _get it._ No more shagging my echo. Now, are we going somewhere, or are we staying here and arguing?” she grumbled, her head pounding with the effort of even this minor dispute, and the Doctor looked grateful to be back on familiar ground at last.

“Day trip… I was thinking Aurora Gloriousia. A whole planet covered in ice, with endless natural light displays. How does that sound?” he asked, offering her his hand, and she smiled as she took it. 

“That sounds wonderful,” she admitted, following him into the TARDIS, adding quietly as she closed the doors: “Just not for my hangover.”

 

~/~/~/~

 

When Clara returned home, six hours after leaving and significantly wetter and colder than she had been when she left, she had to admit to herself that ice planets were not a good idea. Groaning in pain, she lay on the sofa and closed her eyes, letting her mind wander back to the day’s events.

_They’d been having a perfectly pleasant time, bundled up in fur-lined coats that felt like a constant, soothing embrace to her aching limbs, wandering the snow plains together and marvelling at the myriad of colours that spilled across the midnight-blue sky. The Doctor had been talking but she’d wandered off a little way to examine at an ice structure that spanned a chasm, and that was when the creature had come out of nowhere, all teeth and claws, and she’d staggered backwards and felt something give way under her. She’d screamed, and the Doctor had grabbed her, but it wasn’t until she’d tried to run that she’d felt the pain in her ankle and realised what had happened._

_When the Doctor set her down gently in the TARDIS medical bay, he’d cursed the heeled boots she favoured, cursed the ice, cursed his own judgement as he reached for medipacks and pain patches while she insisted she was fine. She hadn’t wanted to be invalided, but he’d ignored her, and so she capitulated and leant back, letting his deft hands slide off her boot and strap up the aching joint. “It’ll be better in a few hours,” he assured her. “Just get some rest.”_

She sighed and reached for her phone, skimming through her contacts and wondering how she could best keep her mind off the throbbing in her ankle. She knew the Doctor would be paranoid now, convinced that he was to blame for the whole affair, convinced she was a fragile human who needed to be wrapped in cotton wool or left on Earth altogether. She wanted to forget that, forget him, and she had a sudden flash of inspiration, dialling the unfamiliar number and feeling her heart clench in anticipation.

“Well, well, well, Oswald. You didn’t even make it 24 hours. I win.” 

“I wasn’t aware we were competing, Clary.” Clara’s mouth twitched and she closed her eyes, leaning back against the arm of the sofa. “Look, do you want to come over?”

Clary paused for a moment, the silence on the line almost enough to drive Clara to madness. “I might do,” Clary said after a few moments. “Or I might have other plans. It would depend.”

“On?”

“Whether you shag me senseless again or not.” Clary said boldly, and Clara laughed.

“You wish.” She teased, and she sensed Clary’s eyebrow raise from the other end of the line.

“I certainly do. Why else are you calling me?” Clary’s voice was full of playful curiosity, but Clara found herself sighing.

“I had an accident, and I need help.” She admitted. “And I thought of you.”

“Was it a sexy accident?” Clary purred. “Can I make it _sexy_ help?”

Clara bit her lip and tried to keep her breathing even as she spoke. “I’ve twisted my ankle.”

There was another long pause from Clary’s end, and when she finally replied, it was in a low voice that made Clara’s spine shiver in anticipation. “I can make that sexy. I’ll be over in ten.”

The line went dead and Clara took a deep breath, trying to slow the pounding of her heart to a normal rate, trying not to forget that she was injured and probably shouldn’t do anything too acrobatic. She was still telling herself that she needed to rest when the doorbell rang some time later, and she limped to answer it, swearing slightly as she caught her ankle against the hem of the rug, trying to remember the Doctor’s instructions but knowing that they would not be heeded.

Clary gave Clara a disapproving look as soon as the front door swung open. “No, no, no. That won’t do.”

“What won’t?” Clara asked, momentarily baffled, as Clary stepped over the threshold and stood, hands on her hips, in the hallway, affixing Clara with a critical stare that reminded Clara intensely of herself.

“You’re all wet.” Clary noted. “And it had _nothing_ to do with me. I don’t like it.” She tilted her head to the side and smirked softly at Clara. “Come on now. Let me help you with that.”

Clara didn’t even have time to ask which part Clary intended to work on before she found her dress being unzipped and cast aside, her tights being rolled down her legs with a light _tsk_ from Clary. “What?” she managed, trying to keep thoughts of recuperation in mind and focus on Clary.

“They’re wet.” Clary repeated her earlier appraisal. “And they’re tights. I don’t like tights. I like suspenders.” She planted a feather light kiss on Clara’s thigh, then slipped her palm under the waistband of her boy-shorts. “I didn’t get a good look at these last night…” she mused, moving to slide them down, and Clara wasn’t sure whether it was the feel of her fingertips on her bare skin or the pain from her ankle that made her stumble, clutching the doorframe for support.

The lust left Clary’s eyes instantly and she stood, wrapping one arm round Clara’s waist. “Hey. No fainting on me. Come on.” She led Clara to the sofa and helped her to sit, arranging cushions into a rough nest and then tucking a blanket around her legs surprisingly tenderly. “Dry clothes?”

Clara shook her head, holding a hand out to Clary, who curled up in the space at her side. “No, no, no,” Clara imitated, _tsk_ ing lightly and trying to look strict. “That won’t do. _You’re_ wearing clothes. _I’m_ not. That seems kinda unfair, don’t you think?”

Clary gave her a calculating look for a few seconds before standing and peeling her jumper over her head without hesitation, following that with her jeans and her camisole, before leaning down until she was nose with Clara. “Will this suffice, Clara?” she asked, raising one eyebrow a little and noticing how Clara’s breasts heaved with the effort of keeping her breathing level. Smirking, Clary straddled her lap and leant down to kiss her throat, watching Clara’s pulse flutter as she slipped her own bra off and then moved to undo Clara’s.

“I’m supposed to be resting, you know…” Clara murmured, kissing Clary intensely and shrugging the straps down her arms, her hands resting on Clary’s waist and squeezing gently. Clary gave her an affronted look, her hand cupping Clara’s cheek as she spoke.

“You did take charge so beautifully last night… it’s about time I return the favour…” Clary stated wickedly, her eyes glinting with mischievous light as she slid her hand down Clara’s stomach and below the waistband of her underwear. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

 

~/~/~/~

 

When Clara awoke the next morning, she was pleasantly surprised to note that there was a steaming cup of tea beside her bed and the smell of frying bacon coming from the kitchen. Clary bustled in a few minutes later, wrapped in Clara’s dressing gown and bearing a tray, smiling widely when she saw Clara was awake. “Good morning, sleepyhead!” she trilled, placing the tray on Clara’s lap and taking a plate from it for herself. “You know, considering all the work I did last night, _you_ should’ve been the one making _me_ breakfast.”

“Hello? Ankle? Wounded soldier?” Clara reminded her teasingly. “And besides, I haven’t ever shagged a girl who’s made me breakfast after, don’t ruin the novelty.”

“How many girls _have_ you shagged?” Clary asked, biting into her bacon sandwich and smearing ketchup down her chin. Clara leaned over to kiss her, wiping the errant sauce up with her finger and sucking it clean, as she considered her answer.

“Including you, precisely five.” She admitted with some embarrassment. “Mainly at uni. I’m out of practice.”

“I would dispute that claim,” Clary argued, then asked boldly: “Who’s the guy in the photos in the lounge?”

Clara’s heart squeezed painfully. She had known this moment would come, and she knew that Danny would’ve wanted her to meet someone else, but it was still painful to attempt to force him and Clary to exist in the same sphere. She cleared her throat a little. “My boyfriend,” she mumbled. “He died.” She felt tears welling up and looked away, surprised when she felt Clary’s hand take hers.

“And I’m the first…” Clary said softly, and it wasn’t a question but a recognition of fact, an acknowledgement of the situation. Clara nodded, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s stupid to get upset about… it was last year… he would’ve wanted me to move on.”

Clary’s thumb stroked the back of her hand slowly and reassuringly. “You’re doing well,” she said kindly. “And you could move on some more by eating that bacon sandwich before it gets cold.”

Clara laughed and picked it up obediently, taking a bite and smiling at Clary as she chewed. “This is all a bit surreal, isn’t it?” she managed, halfway through a mouthful of bacon, resting her head on Clary’s shoulder and swallowing.

“A schoolteacher talking with her mouth full?” Clary stroked Clara’s shoulder gently, the absentminded touch sending tingles through both of them. “I saw your mark-book on the table,” she continued, suddenly realising Clara had never intimated that information to her. “And I may have Facebook stalked you a tiny bit. Just a _tiny_ bit. It was weird to see you looking so proper.”

Clara flushed, pulling the duvet around herself a little more and wondering how to respond, grateful for the interruption of her phone ringing. Clary handed it to her with a frown. “Why’s your doctor ringing you?” she asked, pulling a face, and Clara felt her stomach drop.

“He’s the friend. From last night.” She explained, chewing her lip and watching the screen, letting it ring for a few second longer.

“The sexy one?” Clary asked, the smirk returning to her face, and Clara rolled her eyes, unsure whether to be amused or disgusted.

“If it floats your boat, yes,” she said in exasperation, picking up on the last ring. “Hello?”

“Clara!” the Doctor’s voice was full of relief and Clara felt suddenly guilty about the fact she had lied to him, remembering how worried he had been about her the previous night when he left her flat. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said breezily. “Feeling much better.”

As she spoke, she felt Clary’s hand snake up her side, her fingers beginning to trace patterns on the sensitive spot where her breast met her side, her nails adding just the slightest pressure in a way that she had already learned drove Clara insane.

“Good!” he exclaimed. “How’s the old ankle? It’s not hurting too badly?”

“N-no, it’s f-fine…” she stammered, Clary’s lips meeting her neck and kissing along her shoulders in feather light kisses. “All a-OK and f-fantastic…”

“You don’t sound very fine,” he said broodily, and Clara didn’t need to see him to know he was scowling at her in that way he did when he knew she was lying, the way he surely would do when he found about this dangerous liaison. “You sound a bit breathless.”

“No, j-just… just tired,” Clara managed. “Gonna go nap, bye.” She hung up abruptly, turning her neck and nipping Clary’s lip. “Bad.” She chastised. “Very, very bad.”

“I thought it was good,” Clary teased, wrapping an arm around Clara’s waist and pressing a kiss to her cheek in a more chaste fashion. “So if he’s your friend, what am I?”

Clara thought for a few moments, considering her options, before settling for: “Friends with benefits?”

Clary smiled, kissing Clara lightly. “Friends with benefits.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to space the chapters out a little more now, so here is Chapter 3... plenty of fluff before the plot finally kicks off properly in Part Four!

Not that Clara was counting, but they’d had sex seventeen times since they’d agreed, mutually, on the friends with benefits situation three weeks prior. Every few days, without fail, one would text the other with an invitation, and they would sneak into each other’s flats under the cover of darkness, before waking up the morning after in a tangle of limbs, unable to tell where one of them ended and the other began. She’d last seen Clary on the Monday, but it wasn’t until Thursday that she got the usual notification as she stood in the playground at lunchtime, idly checking her phone as subtly as she could manage.

“Oi, Miss Oswald! No phones in school!” Courtney yelled across to her from the football pitch, but her grin showed that her teasing was well-intentioned. “Can’t give yourself detention, can ya?” 

“Just checking the time, Courtney, have no fear,” Clara assured her, before looking around for her fellow supervisor and then sneaking around the corner of the building, out of sight of the pupils, to open the message.

_I’m at work and I feel naughty. Fancy sending me a photo? ;)_

Clara rolled her eyes slightly, biting her lip and composing a reply in seconds, attempting a playful but chiding tone: _I’m at work too!!_  

_It’s not my fault you picked teaching and I picked a job that works from home. I’m in bed and I’m turned on and I’m thinking about you… ;)_

Clara couldn’t help but laugh as she complied, unbuttoning her blouse a few holes and snapping a quick photo of her cleavage, sending it to Clary and then turning her phone over in her palm with a little thrill. Her pulse was racing, and she had to admit that the risk of getting caught added a level of excitement to their liaisons she hadn’t experienced since her university days. Her phone vibrated once more and she unlocked it and read the message before slipping it back into her pocket with a wicked smile.

_Oh god, baby… that’s just mean… Come over later, don’t even argue. xx_

Smirking, Clara smoothed her hair down and went back to the playground, hoping against hope that she wasn’t noticeably blushing and already mentally planning her outfit for the evening.

 

~/~/~/~

 

Clara stood on Clary’s doorstep that evening with a bottle of wine, wearing a top she’d impulse bought at the age of twenty-one and then consigned to the back of her wardrobe in the intervening years, leaving it unworn. It was split almost to her waist and was largely backless, and she shivered slightly in the autumn breeze, feeling overexposed and wishing she’d chosen something different until Clary answered the door and a witty remark died on her lips as she took in the sight before her. She tugged Clara inside immediately and slammed the door behind her, kissing her fiercely before pulling away slightly and admiring her outfit from head to toe.

“Clara Oswald… that outfit should be illegal,” she purred softly, running her finger from Clara’s navel to sternum and watching her try to catch her breath. “I may have to confiscate it, you know…”

Clara smirked and tilted Clary’s chin up, kissing her with increasing intensity before breaking away and holding up the wine. “I brought provisions…” she murmured softly, feeling the heat of Clary’s hand on her back and considering just slipping her top off right then and there in the warmth of Clary’s arms.

“You’re a star,” Clary said, before freezing abruptly and pushing Clara back against the wall and kissing her with renewed vigour, silencing her startled but half-hearted protests with her lips. Thundering footsteps sounded on the stairs and a tall, muscular man passed them with a curious glance in their direction before disappearing into the kitchen. Clary pulled away with an apologetic smile. “Sorry… figured it saves explaining it to him.”

“Don’t apologise…” Clara placed her finger on Clary’s lips. “Unless you’re apologising for living with someone that good-looking…”

“Jealous, Oswald?” Clary asked with a smirk, and Clara _was_ surprised to feel a stab of jealousy lance through her chest at the thought of Clary with anyone else, especially her handsome housemate. They had never agreed to be exclusive, but the feelings of possessiveness that bubbled up in her were white-hot and unexpected, loudly demanding her attention, and she tried to quell them, attributing the feelings to her inner control freak rather than anything more serious. She told herself that Clary was _her,_ Clary was both _her_ and _not,_ that she was off limits romantically and this purely physical affair needed to stay physical, but somehow the logical part of her brain had disengaged, replaced with a snarling beast that insisted she claim Clary as her own.

“Might be…” she muttered after a few seconds of battling with her inner green-eyed monster, trying to make her tone light and teasing to conceal the jealous undercurrent that was clouding her judgement.

“Well then…” Clary raised her eyebrow in that way that Clara found so deliciously tempting. “Better take me upstairs and mark your territory then…”

Clara felt the inner monster stir once more, growling its approval, and she didn’t need to be invited twice, seizing Clary’s hand and dragging her upstairs.

 

~/~/~/~

 

As they lay together in bed afterwards, Clary rolled onto her front and rested her head on her hand. “Are you really jealous of Ethan?” she asked softly, surveying Clara with a look that even she found unreadable, her eyes full of something that could have been mirth or concern. Clara felt a blush beginning to creep up her cheeks, and hid her face in the pillows.

“Maybe…” she mumbled bashfully. “Tiny bit…”

Silence fell for a few moments, followed by Clary’s pealing laughter, and Clara looked up abruptly, still red faced, prepared to be furious.

“Clara…” Clary managed eventually when her giggling had subsided. “Clara, he’s _gay._ You don’t have to worry about me and him, I don’t exactly float his boat.”

Clara, if at all possible, turned an even deeper shade of maroon, looking down at the sheets in shame. “I didn’t… I’m sorry…”

“Of course you didn’t, and there’s no need to be sorry… it’s kind of hot to think you’re jealous…” Clary said sexily, and Clara suddenly felt irrationally annoyed at the other girl’s inability to take anything seriously.

“I don’t want it to be sexy!” she said abruptly, the annoyance in her tone taking her by surprise. “I just… I mean…”

“You don’t want to share?” Clary asked, her tone deathly-serious once again. “You want this to be an exclusive thing?”

Clara felt her frustration threatening to boil over, searching for the words she needed and failing to find them, so when she opened her mouth to try and explain herself, she was mortified to find herself bursting into tears instead, sensing Clary’s growing concern at the change in mood.

“Clara?” Clary asked gently, leaning across the bed to reach for a tissue and pressing it into Clara’s un-protesting hand. “Hey, what’s wrong?"

Clara sniffed almightily, wiping her eyes and realising too late that her eyeliner was smudging. “I just…” she began, trying to gather her thoughts and cursing her body’s irrational response to the situation. “I’ve just realised that I _am_ jealous, OK? I’m jealous, and I really quite like you, but I _know_ that isn’t practical and it wouldn’t work, so it’s just me being stupid and silly, just pretend I didn’t say anything.” 

Clary fell silent for a long time before standing and crossing the room to her dressing table. Clara immediately felt her absence both physically and emotionally, wishing profoundly that she’d kept her mouth shut, that she’d simply left things the way they were instead of ruining everything by putting her foot in it. She was surprised when Clary returned to her spot under the covers, curling into her and handing Clara a makeup wipe, before taking her hand gently and bringing it to her lips.

“I suppose any egomaniac comments would only reflect negatively on us both, wouldn’t they?” she quipped, and Clara laughed a little, mopping up the remains of her eye makeup. 

“Tiny bit…” she mumbled. “I know it’s really impractical, I just… yeah. You’re not me. I get that. I just… you just… Yeah. Push my buttons in all the right ways.”

Clary smiled at her reassuringly. “Hey.” She tilted Clara’s chin up, forcing her to meet her gaze. “Good thing I feel the same, isn’t it? Muppet.”

“You’re not joking?” Clara asked, her tone pleading, and she hated herself for how desperate she sounded, how desperate she was for confirmation that her feelings were reciprocated, but knowing that she needed the reassurance of certainty.

“We don’t lie to each other, Clara.” Clary reassured her. “No bullshit. Besides, I know your tell. One of the many, many joys of being doppelgangers, remember?”

Clara didn’t have the words to express her relief so she kissed Clary instead, trying to convey her joy to the other girl before they had to consider the practicalities and complications of what would ensue. When they finally pulled away from each other, Clary tucked a strand of Clara’s hair behind her ear gently, smiling warmly.

“You know…” she mused, resting her head on Clara’s shoulder and tracing patterns across her sternum with a fingertip. “Dating is going to be a nightmare.”

“I know…” Clara sighed, trying to come up with a viable solution. “Netflix and chill? Lots and lots of Netflix and chill?”

“Takeaway pizza…” Clary continued, her mouth turning up into a smile. “Wine tasting…”

Clara paused to think. “You know… it is almost winter…” she thought aloud. “We could just wear loads and loads of layers.”

“Layers work for me.” Clary decided, leaning up to kiss Clara. “As long as we can come home and take them all off again afterwards.”

“Obviously,” Clara confirmed. “That’s a definite plan.”

“Well then…” Clary pressed a feather-light kiss to Clara’s pulse point, feeling it jump under her touch. “All systems go. And by all systems, I mean wine.”

 

~/~/~/~

 

Clara stumbled out of the TARDIS with the Doctor, laughing and picking bits of alien plant from her hair. “You never said anything about sentient plant life!”

“I didn’t want to spoil the surprise!” he protested, collapsing onto the sofa with a final laugh and slipping off his boots. “I think I’ve still got most of their high altar in here, hold on…” he tipped a small pile of soil into his hand before looking around for a bin and depositing it in it, casting his jacket off and hanging it over a nearby lamp to steam quietly. “Tea?” he asked hopefully, giving Clara what he hoped was an endearing look, trying to mimic the wide-eyed expression she so favoured. 

“What’d your last slave die of? Overwork?” she asked sarcastically, peeling off her jumper and frowning at the look of concentration that took over his face.

“Might have been not bringing me tea,” he quipped after a few seconds, flashing her a winning smile, and she sighed, traipsing to the kitchen and stripping off the rest of her soiled clothes. Her phone beeped at her and she looked at it, realising with a sudden feeling of horror that the Doctor had miscalculated the time of their return.

_Where are you? I’ve got the laptop and blankets all set up, just missing you now xx_

_Are you alright? Not like you to miss date night… Let me know you’re OK xx_

_I’m guessing you’ve fallen asleep and let your phone die or something, so speak whenever. All the more wine for me ;) xx_

Bi-weekly date night was a well established tradition now, and for two months Clara had been nothing but dutiful in her attendance. Now… now she’d slipped up, and she realised it might be time to come clean with Clary, time to tell her about the life she had battled so hard to keep secret.

“Doctor?” she called, trying to keep her tone casual as she switched the kettle on. “You’ve messed up again.”

“What did I do _now?!_ ” came his exasperated reply, and she rolled her eyes.

“It’s not twenty-four minutes since we left. It’s twenty-four hours.” She popped teabags into mugs and went to grab her dressing gown as she gave him time to process the information. “I missed a thing.”

“What kind of thing?” he asked curiously, walking into the kitchen as she poured water into the mugs and added milk, spooning sugar into his coffee with a concerted effort to avoid smacking him.

“Work thing. Boring human stuff, but _important_ human stuff.” She lied easily, glaring at him as she did so, feeling pleased that he quailed a little under the heat of her gaze.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, slurping the tea to avoid making eye contact. “Won’t happen next time.”  

“It better not, idiot.” She sat on the kitchen counter and stared him down, her eyes steely. His mistake might cost her everything, and she struggled to keep the force of her anger under wraps as she sipped her tea.

“Sorry, Clara. OK? Sorry.” He put his mug down and sighed. “But admit it was worth it.”

“No, no, no,” she said firmly. “You don’t get to do this. I am cross. I am very, very cross, don’t try to be funny.”

He looked at her, startled by her fierceness, then turned towards the door and made to leave.

“Where d’you think you’re going?!” she demanded, stalking after him as far as the kitchen door, but he didn’t even look round.

“To leave you to be cross in peace. Call me when you’re finished and we can go for milkshakes in the Horsehead Nebula to make up for it.”

Clara sighed as she heard the TARDIS dematerialising, picking up her phone and texting Clary.

_Sorry. Come over – need to talk. X_

The time had come to tell the truth, that much she knew. She had no idea how to explain things, so in lieu of permitting her worries to overwhelm her, she decided that showering would probably be a good distraction, and headed for the bathroom. She’d just stepped into the shower when she heard her phone beep, and leaning out of the hot spray she read Clary’s message of assent before concentrating on the task at hand – the removal of most of the remains of a sentient plant from her hair. When that was done, she leant her forehead against the cool glass of the shower cubicle, letting the hot water beat down on her shoulders and trying to straighten out her thoughts enough to formulate a plan.

As she stepped out of the shower and dried off, she managed to arrange her ideas into a rough order, towelling her hair and pulling on a comfortable set of pyjamas that were neither too sexy nor too stern before coming to rest on the sofa, her feet tucked under her as she waited for Clary. Even though she had been expecting it, when the knock at the door came, she jumped, standing up and trying to regulate her heart rate as she went to answer.

Clary’s face was a mirror image of her own, a mask of fear and uncertainty, and Clara felt her heart skip a beat guiltily. “Hey,” she said softly, standing aside to permit entry. “Come on in.”

Clary stepped inside and immediately wrapped her arms around Clara’s waist, burying her face in her shoulder and just holding her for a few minutes, listening to the combined beat of their hearts and trying to stifle her tears. “Please don’t do this,” she mumbled eventually. “Please don’t end it.”

“I’m not… it’s not that!” Clara promised. “No, nothing like that. Come on, you.” She took Clary’s hand and guided her into the lounge, sitting beside her on the sofa and nuzzling into her. “It’s nothing _bad._ Unless. Well. I don’t know. It depends what you would class as _bad_. I need to tell you this because it’s part of my life, and so I guess it’s part of yours, and it’s important…. you remember my friend? The angry Scottish one?”

Clary looked as though she were on the verge of tears, but she managed to force a smile and ask, in a falsely positive tone: “The sexy one? Yeah.”

Clara took a deep, fortifying breath, then said in rush: “He’sanalienandeveryweekwegotravellingintimeandspaceI’msorrypleasedon’tbemad.”

Clary frowned in confusion. “He’s a what?” she asked in bafflement, trying to mentally untangle Clara’s words.

“An alien,” Clara repeated more slowly, looking fixedly into her lap and avoiding meeting Clary’s eyes. “And we travel in time and space together.”

The look of confusion was overtaken with a look of amusement as Clary burst out laughing, tears of mirth rolling down her cheeks as she guffawed. “You’re taking the piss, right?” she asked Clara once shed regained some composure a few moments later. “That’s not an actual thing, Clara.”

Clara’s grim expression of solemnity was enough to convince her otherwise, and Clary fell silent for a heartbeat, then whistled in awe. “Wow. OK, either you’re really, really batshit insane, or he actually is from, like, Mars.”

“Gallifrey.” Clara corrected automatically, wondering how well Clary would take the next onslaught of information.

“Galli- _what_?” Clary asked incredulously, her eyebrows raised, fixing Clara with a stare that was still slightly tinged by disbelief.

“Gallifrey. He’s a Time Lord, the last of them, and he has this blue box that travels in time and space, so that’s what we do. That’s what we _were_ doing, yesterday evening. He was supposed to drop me back before date night, but he overshot. That happens.” Clara could see the cogs whirring in Clary’s brain as she explained, and she paused to allow her to gather her thoughts.

“He has a blue box?” Clary asked. “That’s not very Han Solo, is it? I was expecting the Death Star or something. Isn’t it cramped?”

“It’s bigger on the inside,” Clara explained, and Clary smirked.

“It’s not the only thing,” she teased, and Clara laughed. “Hang on, Time _Lord_? What does that make you? Lady Clara? Should I curtsey?”

“I’m not anything, I’m just his friend. It’s… complicated. I saved his life a few times, he saves mine, we save planets, that kind of thing.” She was aware how utterly, utterly outlandish this all sounded, sighing inwardly and thanking the stars that at least Clary was taking it well.

“God,” Clary muttered. “So that’s what I’ve got to compete with? All of time and space, _and_ a sexy, Scottish, alien Lord?”

“There’s no competing involved,” Clara assured her, squeezing her hand. “Absolutely none.”

“I’ll say.” Clary concurred. “Netflix or Neptune, I know which one I’d go for…”

“Jealous?” Clara teased, kissing Clary’s cheek lightly.

“Maybe… but I’m sure I could overcome that… on one condition…” Clary mused, resting her cheek against Clara’s hair and stroking her back slowly as she thought.

“Name it.”

“At least once, I get to come with.”

Clara considered her for a few seconds, knowing she would have to tell the Doctor anyway, knowing that this would just be facing the inevitable but still feeling her heartbeat quicken with trepidation.

“Deal.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Clara gets very, very drunk, and makes a fatal error... [because drunk Clara is fun to write.]

It was just past midnight when Clara stumbled outside, seeking solace from the noise of the party, finding herself tipsily unsure of her footing and giggling as she nearly tripped in the dark. The icy January air bit at her bare arms and turned her fingertips numb but she was too inebriated to notice, instead looking around furtively and pulling out a single cigarette, cupping her hand around it and lighting up with some difficulty. When she finally managed it, she took a long drag and then exhaled slowly, feeling like a fifteen-year-old smoking behind the bike sheds, and she laughed at the flash of memory, silently thanking her cousin for indulging her small vices. Despite her devil-may-care drunk attitude, a small part of her hoped her dad wouldn’t notice the smell of it on her when she went back in, before the louder part of her brain decided she was too drunk to care about that argument, and she continued drawing on it resolutely while going through her phone.

She knew whose number she intended to call, but somewhere between the wine and the cold, when the other person finally answered, she was surprised to be greeted with a confused Scottish accent rather than the soft, lilting London dialect she had been anticipating. Part of her brain was processing that when her mouth decided to go on without her consent, and she found herself launching into a drunken speech despite her best efforts to silence herself.

“Hey you! God, it’s _lame_ at dad’s, I missed you today, I hope home isn’t too bad, and I hope you liked your presents! I’m outside having a fag and dad is going to kill me because Linda _hates_ it, but I don’t give a shit, maybe I should just throw up in the flowerbeds? That’d really piss her off, and oh _Clary,_ I miss you so much, you wonderful, wonderful person…” she rambled, finally pausing for breath.

“Clary?” came the Doctor’s voice, his tone hard and cold. “Did you just call me _Clary_?”

“I…” Clara abruptly sobered up, and she stubbed her cigarette out in a nearby plant pot, cursing her poor judgement. “Yes? Maybe? Possibly?”

“You… you…” the Doctor searched for an appropriately insulting word, and settled for something harsh and Gallifreyan that she had neither the ability or the need to translate. “How could you be so _stupid_? So narcissistic?” he spat angrily, and Clara considered hanging up for a brief moment before she realised that if she did that, there was a very real possibility that he could turn up, here, in her dad’s back garden, and force her to talk to him face to face. 

“It just sort of… happened?” she offered uncertainly, and he laughed harshly, his disbelief evident.

“What? You just _accidentally_ kept kissing and going for scones? How long has this been going on, Clara?” he asked her angrily, and she felt her temper flare in retaliation.

“Since that first time, not that you _noticed!_ ” she all but shouted. “You’re such a narcissist that you never even notice how I am, never even notice that I’ve been the happiest I’ve been since Danny died, so don’t you bloody lecture me on _my_ life choices when _you’re_ the one who stole a TARDIS and spent his whole life running away!”

That was enough to silence him for a few seconds, and when he spoke again his voice was surprisingly gentle. “Did you really think I didn’t notice, Clara? When do I _not_ notice you?”

Clara tried to respond wittily, but all the available comments died on her lips, her voice catching in her throat. “Doctor…”

“Clara, I noticed, and I didn’t want to say, but I never thought… I never thought it was with _her_ ,” he sighed. “I guess it makes sense in some ways. You’re a perfect match. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I have a duty of care…”

“That you take very seriously, I know.” Clara replied. “We’re being careful.”

“Careful in what way? In the not-falling-in-love way, or the not-being-caught way?” he asked her with concern, and she sank onto the stone bench that Linda had thoughtfully installed beside the now-frozen pond, wincing a little where the icy marble met her exposed legs 

“The second way,” she admitted unwillingly, chewing her fingernail. “Mostly the second. I really like her, Doctor…” she sighed. This was an unusually intimate conversation for them, and the subject matter felt a little uncomfortable. “I just, I don’t know…”

“Does she know about me?” he asked, suddenly changing the topic, and she knew that he would take particular umbrage to the fact that Clary was fully aware of him, whereas his knowledge of Clara’s companion was scarce.

“Yes,” she said quietly, feeling a blush creeping over her cheeks despite her solitude. “I told her a couple of weeks ago.”

“A couple of _weeks_? When were you planning on telling me?” he said incredulously, and she knew that his eyebrows would be raised and angry, knew that he was probably stalking round the console and considering whether to come and see her or not.

“Yes, a couple of weeks. When we were late back, I missed a date… I had to tell her. She took it well; I just didn’t know how to tell _you_ because I knew you’d be upset that I hadn’t, and it just kept not coming up, and I just… I made a mistake. I made a huge mistake.” That hurt her ego the most; her ego and her conscience. Admitting she’d made an error of judgement, admitting she had lied and concealed the truth from her closest friend.

“Well.” His tone was surprised. “She took it well – that’s something.”

“Doctor,” she mumbled, her head spinning from the alcohol and the cigarette and the argument. “I’m sorry.”

“Clara, I forgive you.” He assured her gently. “I think I’m more worried about the smoking part, don’t make a habit of it.”

“I shan’t,” she acquiesced. “On one condition.”

“What…?” he asked with trepidation, and she took a deep breath, steeling herself to call in a favour.

“She wants to come. On a trip.” she said in a rush. Silence fell at the Doctor’s end. “Doctor?”

He sighed after a short pause, conceding defeat. “Fine. Just the _one,_ OK? To show you’re not in danger, and you’re not mad.”

“I love you, you know that?” Clara said playfully, and she could tell that the Doctor was blushing.

“Careful,” he teased. “You’re not looking in a mirror again, are you?”

“Idiot.” She said fondly. “I’ll text you dates.”

“You’re such a human.”

“And you’re such an alien, go and have fun.” Clara paused. “Oh, and Doctor? Happy new year.”

 

~/~/~/~

 

The Doctor’s choice of location had been superb, Clara had to admit. She stood with Clary on a warm desert plateau, watching a million stars shoot over their heads and disappear over the horizon. She reached for Clary’s hand, enjoying the look of wonder on her face as she took in the sight before her, the never-ending rain of astronomical phenomena reflected in her eyes. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Clary murmured softly, and Clara smiled softly.

“It is,” she concurred, her eyes never leaving Clary’s face, and she pressed a tender kiss to her cheek.

“You charmer,” Clary grinned, wrapping her arm around Clara’s waist. “Does it do this all year?”

Clara looked over her shoulder to the Doctor for advice. He was stood behind them with the TARDIS a little way away, offering them some degree of privacy while nonetheless taking his role as chaperone seriously.

“All day, all night, all year. Which is, incidentally, three of your earth years long.” He informed them, and Clary nodded, her eyes still fixed on the sky.

“What happened to the locals?” Clara asked, looking around at the barren landscape and noting the lack of habitations or dwellings.

“There was a famine a couple of decades ago. They died out, now the ecosystem is failing. This whole star system burns up in about a century.” The Doctor told them, and Clara rolled her eyes.

“Thanks for ruining the moment, Doctor.” She chided, turning to give him a teacher look. “Bit of a mood killer.”

“Clara?” Clary asked, her tone oddly calm.

“Mm?” Clara replied, still glaring at the Doctor.

“If the locals all died out, what is _that_?” 

Clara turned on her heel and barely had time to take in the huge, scaled quadruped that had appeared from below the plateau before it descended upon them, snarling and snapping, and Clara ran for it, tugging Clary with her as she headed for the TARDIS before they were cut off by a second creature.

“I may have forgotten about the Flokillians,” the Doctor shouted, hot on their heels. “My bad.”

“I am going to _kill_ you!” Clara screamed, heading towards the edge of the expanse of sandstone and looking down to the desert far below, praying that he had an idea and that she hadn’t doomed herself and Clary to death.

“Well, if you don’t let me _think_ then you might be saved a job!” he retorted, reaching for his screwdriver, and that split-second of distraction was all that one of the creatures needed to lunge for him, teeth bared, claws outstretched. It was then that Clara noticed the emptiness of her hand and the absence of Clary from her side, feeling panic rise within her as she looked around for her and realised what she was doing. 

The scream died on her lips as she watched the scene in slow motion: The Doctor, backing away, fear in his eyes, and Clary diving in front of him, the beast’s enormous paw connecting with her shoulder and sending her spinning across the stone with a sickening crack. As Clary skidded across the dusty ground and came to a halt at her feet, time reverted to its usual state and Clara scooped her up with uncharacteristic strength, heading for the TARDIS, no longer caring whether she made it there intact or not. Clary was hurt, Clary had put herself in danger because of her and because of the Doctor, and if she died, Clara would never forgive herself for this. She stumbled into the console room and headed for the medical bay, vaguely sensing the Doctor behind her, ignoring his offers of assistance. Clary was her girlfriend, her responsibility, her concern, and she would be the one to carry her, maintaining a steady presence and offering physical reassurance that she hoped transcended the realms of consciousness.

She laid Clary down on one of the beds and stepped back a little way, enough to let the Doctor scan her, before taking her hand with the utmost care and raising it to her lips, fighting back tears. “She’s going to be OK, isn’t she?” she asked, her tone surprisingly controlled. “It’s not _bad_?”

The Doctor pursed his lips as he took in the readings. “Well, it’s not _good,_ but it could’ve been worse.” He concluded. “It’s fixable. I can heal her.”

Clara sighed in relief, feeling her knees go weak and sinking into a chair, not letting go of Clary’s hand. “So fix her.” She commanded, her eyes searching Clary’s face for evidence of pain or discomfort, but it remained a blank mask, unconsciousness having claimed her.

The Doctor reached for the nearest medi-pack and began to apply it to Clary’s shoulder, the silence resting awkwardly between them as Clara’s frustration simmered below her calm façade. It wasn’t until he was done that she looked up at him, affixing him with a measured look that concealed the maelstrom of emotions within her. 

“You knew this would happen.” She said calmly. It wasn’t a question but a statement, and the Doctor knew it, resting his hands against the edge of the bed and sighing with resignation.

“I knew there was a possibility that she might do something like that, yes.” He admitted, refusing to meet her gaze.

“How?” Clara asked. “Because of the time stream?”

“Partly,” he conceded, nodding slowly before adding reluctantly: “but mainly because she’s too much like you.”

“What do you mean?” Clara asked sharply, her eyes narrowing in anger, and he surveyed her wearily.

“She’s reckless. _You_ were reckless in her very creation, Clara, some of that was bound to show up in the splinters.”

“I wasn’t reckless! I was saving you!” Clara argued, raising her voice, and he hushed her with a wave of his hand.

“By sacrificing yourself! And by condemning the others to follow that pattern!” he held out his fingers, counting off. “Oswin Oswald, Clara Oswin Oswald, Clara Williams, Oswin Davies… they all died to save _me_ , because _you_ did the same! It’s imbued in their very being, Clara, it’s their fate because you made it so.”

Clara took a shaky breath, turning her face away from the Doctor so that he wouldn’t see her cry as realisation dawned. “So I’ve doomed her?” she whispered, unable to keep the tremor from her voice. The Doctor’s silence was enough to confirm her suspicions, and she put her head in her hands, letting the tears overwhelm her as the guilt engulfed her, kissing Clary’s hand and murmuring apologies under her breath as she wept.

When she looked up, she found herself alone with Clary and after a moment she stood, pressing a kiss to her forehead before leaving the medical bay in search of a bedroom for her to recuperate in. The TARDIS was happy to comply at first, offering a range of bedchambers in varying sizes and trying to fulfil Clara’s needs, but as she rejected room after room over minute details, the time machine’s patience began to wane, and when she pulled open the tenth door, she was instead confronted with a blank wall.

“Very funny,” she muttered, turning a corner in search of another choice, jolting out of her reverie as the corridor lights turned deep, blood red and the cloister bell began to sound, low and incessant in its melancholic, foreboding tolling. “Oh no…” Clara felt fear grip her stomach like a vice, her blood turning to ice. “Oh no, no, no…”

She ran for the console room, bounding up the steps and colliding with the Doctor, falling awkwardly but springing up immediately, her mind consumed by the crucial question. “Where is she?” she asked desperately, clutching his lapels and shaking him. “Where’s Clary?”

The Doctor extricated himself from her clutches, looking sheepish, and her whole body thrummed as she felt adrenaline flood her system, preparing her to fight or flight after she’d heard his reply.

“I flew us back… the drive stack was making… I went to… she ran past, I couldn’t catch her…” he stumbled over his words, backing away from her a little as he did so, sensing the impending force of her emotions.

“She heard us.” Clara realised aloud, her stomach dropping. “She heard you, and she heard me, and now she’s going to freak out just like Winnie did, but Winnie wasn’t my _bloody_ girlfriend, you total… you utter…” she settled for repeating the word he had called her at New Year, mangling the Gallifreyan, but her meaning was clear enough to the Doctor.

“I didn’t know! I thought… I never… Clara, just go after her!” he suggested hopelessly, and Clara rounded on him, her eyes full of white-hot anger.

“Of course I’m going to go after her. And _you_? You’re going to go a long, long way away, and think about what you’ve done.” She spat, and he frowned, anger taking over his face.

“What _I’ve_ done?!” he asked her incredulously. “What did I do?!”

“You took us to Kataa Flo Ko and conveniently forgot about that _thing_ and that’s how she got hurt!” Clara’s voice rose in volume and anger as she stalked around the console towards the doors.

“Clara, I can’t predict every outcome of my actions!” he protested furiously. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s you, with your recklessness!”

“Doctor, just _go away_!” She repeated, unable to think of anything more eloquently phrased as she slammed through the TARDIS doors and into the icy January air, hearing the TARDIS dematerialise behind her but no longer caring. She had only one concern now, one objective, one mission.

Find Clary.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter in which things start to get quite dark, so just a heads up, trigger warnings for abuse/violence.

Clara hadn’t left her flat in over a week. The lounge was still carpeted with crumpled Missing Person posters and her laptop still thrummed around the clock as she monitored social media, but her phone was silent beside her for the first time in months as she lay on the sofa despondently. She had to accept it, that much she knew: she had to accept that Clary was gone without a trace, but part of her was still clinging to the faint hope that one day she would return. It had been three months, three long, unbearable months, and there was no word from Clary or from anyone she knew. Clara had exhausted every lead, every resource and every possible sighting, to no avail, and she had reached the end of the line at last. Her mind flashed back over the previous few weeks, flicking through the memories like the pages of a book, skipping over the parts that made her heart ache so badly she could barely breathe.

Ordering the posters online and printing her number on them, sticking them around the area then fending off the weirdos who called her, sometimes twice daily, and trying to follow the leads that seemed to offer something significant. Donning a blonde wig and visiting Clary’s usual haunts to talk to her friends, trying to keep her composure when they offered no information and no advice. Tracking online profiles and bank card usage through some tips a friend of a friend had given her, feeling furtive and illicit as she waited desperately for a message or a post or a withdrawal, but none came. Monitoring the morgues’ computer systems for new records and feeling her heart still whenever anyone matched the right description, but it was never _her_. She sometimes thought to herself, guiltily, that knowing Clary was dead would be better than being caught in this hell of ignorance, before breaking down in tears and cursing herself for her negative thinking, punishing herself by going a night without sleep as she searched frantically for some titbit of information she may have missed.

During the time of their courtship, Clary’s lack of family had sometimes seemed a blessing: no parents to meet, no siblings to win over, no awkward grandparents who seethed with resentment and disapproval. Clary had joked of it lightly and often, enjoying hearing Clara’s tales of trivial family matters and Oswald anecdotes, collected over many years and long since dull to Clara herself. But as Clara searched deeper, she realised that a family could have helped her, could have given her some clue as to where to continue her quest, and as if mirroring her lost partner’s isolation, she retreated from her own family, ignoring their calls and leaving emails and post unopened, knowing their concern would be piqued but finding herself ceasing to care.

Her current apathy followed a period of manic activity that saw her finish marking the entirety of Year Eleven’s coursework assignments, chairing a staff meeting, organising a litter pick of the playground, cleaning the flat and buying two new summer dresses. She’d returned home with the shopping bags after a feverish week of distractions and her eyes had fallen on the photograph she’d tried to avoid looking at of late: the one of her and Clary with their arms slung around each other, Clara holding up the camera as Clary laughed, her eyes sparkling, her hair catching the dim winter light and shining like a thousand stars. Clara had felt her heart break again and crawled into bed, oscillating only between there, the bathroom and the sofa with regularity for the next seven days, her mind and body worn down.

As she lay on the sofa, she considered the photograph of her and Clary for the thousandth time, and she was surprised to feel anger lance through her, her arm jerking back of its own accord and throwing the frame at the wall, the glass shattering with a satisfying _smash_ and the photo fluttering down to land on the pile of twisted fragments with a finality that Clara found fitting. Clary had chosen to run away, leaving Clara behind to pick up the pieces of her damaged life and her broken heart, without so much as the chance to say goodbye or explain herself. She hadn’t considered Clara’s feelings in any of this, hadn’t considered anyone other than herself, and Clara cursed her selfishness and her lack of empathy, cursed her lack of consideration and her pride, cursed herself for imbuing her echoes with the worst facets of her personality. If she had never met the Doctor, she would never have taken that risk, never have created the echoes… never have given life to Clary. The idea made her shudder, but she couldn’t help but wonder if never doing so could have spared her this pain, spared her the agony of losing another partner and ripping her heart open for the second time in as many years.

The Doctor. He was, as he had been for months, a conundrum that needed to be solved. She hadn’t seen him since she had banished him after that fateful trip, sending him into an exile that she had once planned to extend indefinitely. Some nights, as she lay in bed, she considered how easy it would be to call him back to London, to borrow the TARDIS and hook herself up to its telepathic circuits, to locate Clary and bring her home, putting an end to this torturous separation. But she would not be seen to be weak willed, she would not be seen as giving in, and so she had stubbornly refused to break the silence between them, too proud and too ashamed to make the first gesture of repentance and attempt to rebuild their friendship. She had to admit, however, as she laid upon the sofa and watched the orange glow from the city block out the gentle twilight for the seventh night in a row, that she missed him, missed his companionship, missed his outlook on life, and it was then that she nearly broke, nearly dialled his number and begged for forgiveness.

As she closed her eyes to a world that had not been quite whole since she lost the two other parts of her, she wished only for the cool oblivion of sleep to consume her and refrain from cursing her with the nightmares it favoured of late, praying for the merciful brush of gentle dreams to comfort her aching soul. She didn’t need to look at the clock to know that it was early, the televisions of her neighbours still blaring the familiar sounds of EastEnders and Don’t Tell the Bride, but she yearned for sleep none the same, the only instance that Clara no longer felt like a girl who was, in every sense, running out of time. 

Sleep was beckoning to her when the knock at the door came, loud and confident and insistent, and Clara all but fell off the sofa in her shock, sweeping up the messy canvas of posters and depositing them behind a cushion, running her hand through her hair as she walked to the front door, wondering whether her dad had taken it upon himself to drive down from Blackpool – it was the kind of overblown gesture he was fond of. She yanked the door open impatiently, her protestations failing her as she took in the figure stood in the communal hallway.

Clary stood there in a long, dark trench coat, one hand in her pocket and the other still clenched into a fist as it hung by her side. Her hair was swept back from her face, her fringe gone, and dark crimson lipstick made her lips look simultaneously fearsome and seductive as she pursed them. It was when she saw Clary’s eyes that Clara realised something was wrong, however, the hazel eyes she knew so well now inexorably alien, cold and hard and hateful. Clara knew then that whatever Clary had seen, it had changed her, and this was only confirmed when she began to speak, her voice cold and clipped and artificial sounding, so different from the previous warmth that had caressed Clara with kind words and gentle murmurings.

“Hello, Clara.” Clary stated without emotion. “May I come in? Good.” She didn’t wait for a response, instead brushing past Clara and walking into the flat, Clara following with some degree of trepidation. 

“Where have you been?” Clara asked, trying to keep her tone bright. “You look…” she fumbled for a word. “Great.”

“I have been learning, I have been growing. I have seen the way forward.” Clary said measuredly, her tone mechanical, and it was then that Clara felt the stirrings of unease within her as she noted how radicalised Clary seemed, quoting words that were not her own as though they were mantras of understanding.

“How have you been, though?” Clara tried again, smiling at Clary and sitting on the sofa. “Honestly, you look great. That coat is fantastic, where’s it from?”

Clary surveyed her with a look of cool indifference, laced with something that Clara realised abruptly seemed awfully like contempt. “The twenty-third century. My home.”

“Your home?” Clara said quizzically, her tone still the overly cheerful one she used to instil her pupils with energy. “What d’you mean, your home? You’re from London.”

“I am from London, yes. But not this stinking, filthy mass of unwashed bodies and ignorant peasants. The London of my day is magnificent, shining, filled with knowledge and wealth and technology beyond your wildest dreams.” Clary’s tone was cold, and it was then that realisation dawned on Clara, then that she felt comprehension flooding her brain.

“You’re from… that’s why your family… how did you…?” she stumbled over her questions, and Clary affixed her with a pitying gaze.

“I am not here to answer your questions!” she snapped, and Clara scowled, standing up to match Clary’s height advantage and meet her gaze.

“So why did you come back?” she demanded. “To tell me how great life is in the future when I’m long dead? I thought you loved me, I thought you cared about me, but now I see how wrong I am if all you can do is run from me!”

“Running away? Come, come, Clara, we both know that any of my nasty little habits come from you, so maybe you should turn that narcissism into self-loathing. I didn’t run away. I made a strategic decision, to avoid my impending doom.” Clary’s tone was icy and mocking, and that was what frightened Clara more than anything else, much more than the clothes or the cold eyes or the words themselves.

“It wouldn’t have… Clary, I wouldn’t have let you get hurt, I would never have allowed that to happen…” she began, but Clary cut her off with a harsh laugh.

“But you _did_!” she said contemptuously. “You always knew my fate, you always knew my purpose, but you never told me. You took me on that trip to allow me to be expendable and fulfil my duty. You signed my death warrant.”

“I did nothing of the sort!” Clara was near tears now, but that only elicited another cruel laugh from Clary. “I never meant for it to happen, I just wanted to show you something beautiful... You’re my girlfriend, you asked to go, I wanted to make you happy…”

“ _I am not your girlfriend!_ ” Clary snarled furiously, suddenly lunging for Clara and pushing her roughly against the wall, shaking her by the shoulders. “You have _never_ cared for me, except for use as a shield by your pathetic Doctor, except as a test subject and a disposable soldier!”

“No!” Clara managed, her throat constricting with terror. “That isn’t… no! I love you, I thought… I thought you loved me!”

“Love is for the weak.” Clary declared, her eyes boring into Clara’s with a frightening intensity, but she found herself unable to look away.

“Then you’re weak,” Clara said defiantly. “Because I _know_ that you loved me, I _know_ that you felt the same.”

“ _Lies!_ ” Clary screamed, slamming Clara back into the wall again, noting with satisfaction the dull _crack_ as her skull connected with the hard, unrelenting stone, watching as Clara’s eyes lost focus, before letting her limp form slump to the floor, pale and unresponsive. “Fool.”

She picked Clara up with ease, carrying her to the bathroom and setting her unconscious double down in the bath with little care, abruptly noticing the scarlet streak of blood that Clara’s head left on the porcelain tiles and wiping it away with a towel. Shaking it out, she spread it across the floor and opened the cabinet in search of the scissors she knew Clara kept there, taking them out and laying them on the sink before removing her coat and hanging it carefully on the back of the door. She wrapped a second towel around her shoulders and removed the tie from her hair, then looked from Clara to her own reflection, sliding her fingers down a section of hair and estimating carefully before snipping it with precision. She made short work of her task, chopping and evening out efficiently, until she was quite sure that the desired effect had been achieved, shaking her newly shortened locks and sweeping the offcuts into the bin. She gave Clara’s body a last, lingering glance as she left the bathroom, her mind full of nothing but scorn for her creator, before closing the door behind her and picking up Clara’s phone from the sofa.

She called the unfamiliar number without hesitation, listening to it ring and wondering whether the sentimental old fool would be as malleable as she hoped. 

“Clara!” came the Doctor’s voice, full of barely-concealed surprise. “I’m still lurking around the perimeters of the Milky Way as instructed, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

Clary slipped into Clara’s voice with ease, smiling in a way she had memorised long ago. “Doctor! Look, I’m sorry about… all that. I was an idiot. It’d be good to see you and pick things up where they left off, if you wanted to stop lurking and start living again.”

“I’m sorry too,” he concurred. “I think we both made a mistake.”

“But mainly you,” Clary said playfully, although her eyes remained cold and unmoved. “Can you come, or not?”

“I can be there in five…” he paused for a second. “Four… three…” 

The whooshing filled the lounge as the TARDIS materialised, the blue box that had started it all, that hateful blue box, and then he was there, in the doors, his hand outstretched.

“Clara,” he said warmly, and she stepped forward to embrace him. 

“Doctor!” she heard herself saying as he hugged her back awkwardly, stepping inside with her still hugging him, buying the time to force a false warmth into her eyes.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, once she’d pulled away and taken him in. Still in that ridiculous maroon coat Clara had twittered on about, but this time coupled with a battered pair of tartan trousers and worn-out Doc Martens. She forced herself to smile more widely, her cheeks already aching from the unfamiliar action.

“And you. Look, I’m sorry.” She offered, but he held up his hand.

“I’ve drawn a line under it,” he assured her. “This is me, drawing a line under it.” He gestured with his hand, turning a dial on the console with the other. “Where to?”

Clary considered it for a moment, her eyes narrowing in thought.

“Somewhere exciting,” she decided. “Somewhere dangerous.”

He typed in a set of coordinates and released the handbrake, watching the time rotor rise and fall with the simple fascination of a child.

 _Oh Doctor,_ Clary thought to herself. _This is going to be far too easy._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after the introduction of evil Clary last chapter, here she is in more glorious detail. Trigger warnings for abuse/violence & their consequences.

Clary had grown expert in her pretences now. As she stepped into the dank interior of the storage locker, she let her cheeriness dissipate and her smile drop, her mouth instead contorting into a snarl as she stalked forwards, her eyes raking the bare interior for the source of her anger. Locating it, she aimed a kick at the pitiful bundle, eliciting nothing more than a quiet whimper in response.

“You didn’t _tell_ me that I don’t like red wine, you dumb bitch,” she spat. “I nearly slipped up today, Adrian is starting to get suspicious. How could you forget a thing like that?”

“I… I’m sorry…” Clara stammered weakly, pulling herself into a sitting position and licking her dry, cracked lips. “I must have forgotten… please…”

“Well next time, _don’t forget._ ” Clary said coldly. “Or I might just forget to keep you alive…” She pulled a gun out of her pocket and placed it to Clara’s head, the ice-cold metal of the barrel digging into her temple as Clary caressed the trigger. “And wouldn’t it just be such a _shame_ to see all those pretty brains decorating the walls… oh wait. Wouldn’t everyone be so much happier once I take over your pathetic little life? I’m a better you than you ever were… maybe I should just do it now?” she pulled the trigger, nothing happening except a small flash of light, but Clara jumped nevertheless, a small scream escaping her lips despite her best efforts at maintaining self-control. 

“Please…” she begged Clary, trying to widen her eyes in that way she had used to find so effective. “You don’t have to do this…”

“Oh Clara, haven’t you been listening? I do have to do this. Because you created me, and you know how single-minded you can be… I don’t want to be second class any longer, I don’t want to be a splinter or some worthless copy. I want to be _you_. But first you have to die.” Clary crooned softly, running the barrel over Clara’s cheeks, the metal staying cold as ice against the feeble warmth of Clara’s skin.

“So kill me then,” Clara said with an attempt at boldness, tilting her head up to meet Clary’s gaze. “Get it over with.”

“Oh no,” Clary said, a cruel smile twisting her features. “You don’t get to die on your own terms. Don’t be silly. It’ll be a lovely surprise when it does happen.”

“Clary...” Clara said breathlessly, and her echo sneered, backhanding Clara impetuously, watching her crumple onto the bed with satisfaction. 

“That’s not my name.” Clary repeated for the hundredth time, dragging her upwards by the hair. “That is _not my damn name._ ”

“It is your name!” Clara snapped. “It’s always been your name, you can’t be me, you can’t lie like this!” 

She knew that she’d crossed a line when she saw the hatred flare in Clary’s eyes, watching her raise the hand with the gun and bring the barrel down against her scalp as if in slow motion. Pain lanced through her, white hot, and as she lost consciousness, she felt Clary tilt her chin upwards and kiss her roughly, nipping her lower lip and then smirking. 

“Be a good girl, now.” She said patronisingly, standing and walking towards the door, slamming it shut behind her and pulling her phone out as she walked away. She dialled the Doctor’s number as she crossed the industrial park, stowing her gun deep within her handbag while she waited for him to pick up. 

“Clara!” he responded almost immediately, and she enjoyed how trusting he had become of her, how utterly convinced he was by her deception. “I suppose this is about today’s trip, isn’t it?” he asked brightly, and she put on the voice she used for the rest of the world, the voice she had all but stolen from the girl in the storage locker. 

“Yep, it is.” She agreed. “I want to go somewhere quiet, the kids have been a nightmare. You know what teenagers are like.”

“No,” he admitted, before adding: “but I know what humans are like, and that’s not a recommendation.” He fell silent for a heartbeat before settling on an idea. “What about Fairyland? I know you always wanted to go…”

Clary panicked momentarily, her brain whirring furiously. Clara had never mentioned it, and there was no way to go back and ask her without the Doctor overhearing the exchange, so she found herself agreeing with him reflexively. “Sure. I’ll meet you at mine in an hour. Just at the shops.”

“Deal.” He agreed, ringing off, and Clary smirked at how easy he was making things for her, how simple the idiot was for believing her lies and her act. 

As she made her way home on the tube, she considered the past few weeks. She’d kept Clara locked in her flat for the first few days, cross-examining her exhaustively until she had memorised the names of students, staff and friends well enough to attend Coal Hill as Clara. She’d slipped into character faultlessly, and each evening she would return to the flat fuelled with endorphins, questioning Clara forcefully until she provided the information necessary for Clary to pass herself off as her more completely. It wasn’t until the fifth day that Clara had attempted to make her escape, so Clary had punished her that night, leaving Clara bleeding and aching on the bathroom floor until the small hours of the morning, when she’d brought her to the storage locker and introduced it, in the voice she had perfected, as her new home. Even then, Clara had not been cowed, fighting her for days and screaming for help, until Clary had at last broken her completely and inexorably, reducing her to a weak-willed shadow of her former self. 

She ascended the stairs to her flat – for it was hers, now – whilst feeling a thrill of excitement as she considered what lay ahead of her, the places she was about to see, and she noted with satisfaction that the old fool was already here, so eager was he to see her once again. 

“Clara,” he smiled at her and stood, walking into the TARDIS and letting her follow. “What was it this time? The Year Eights or that Year Ten with the anger issues?”

“The Year Sevens,” Clary said with an exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes. “They aren’t grasping Shakespeare in the way I’d hoped, we couldn’t pop back and see him, could we? Ask for some clarity from the great man himself?”

“I don’t see why not,” the Doctor mused, circling the console and setting the TARDIS into flight before stilling her, abruptly, in the centre of the vortex, the time rotor stilling as they drifted. “Except for the fact that you’re not you.”

Clary felt the slightest stirrings of terror within her, but quashed them as best she could, aiming for a chagrined smile that conveyed little to the Time Lord. “Of course I’m me, why wouldn’t I be?”

His face was blank and unreadable as he surveyed her critically, looking her up and down with a practiced eye. “Because I’ve already taken Clara to Fairyland, and she hated it. You’re Clary." 

“I…” she began, her act momentarily forgotten as she took half a step backwards, realising the plan would have to be accelerated. “How long have you known?”

“I’ve suspected it since you let me draw a line under Kataa Flo Ko,” he admitted, shrugging. “Clara wouldn’t have let that go.”

Clary cursed her carelessness, cursed her lack of awareness. “Oh.” She mumbled, looking to the floor in an approximation of contrition. “Sorry.” 

“Where is she?” he asked, and she took a deep breath, arranging her face into an appropriately sombre expression and enjoying watching the hope fade from his eyes.

“She died, Doctor,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “She was troubled, and after what happened… she felt guilty, Doctor, and she took… took her own life…” she let her voice tremble a little, covering her face with her hands to attempt to force tears from her own eyes.

“No…” he murmured in disbelief, shaking his head. “Not my Clara, my Clara wouldn’t…”

“She did, Doctor. She left me a note…” Clary took it from her pocket and held it out to him, forcing her hand to shake a little as he took it, the note she had forced Clara to write with a knife to her neck. She watched his face cloud over as he read the smudged note, laying it gently on the console and looking to Clary with confusion.

“Why are you here?” he asked quietly, tears filling his ancient eyes. “She’s dead, and gone, so why are you here?”

“She wanted me to bring you hope,” Clary said softly, reaching for his hand, but he moved away, turning his back to her. She knew what she had to do next, what Clara had intimated to her only when she had hurt her the very worst. “She wanted me to look after you and keep you going. And she wanted me to do this.”

She advanced on him determinedly, reaching up and pressing her lips to his, feeling desire pool in her stomach as she kissed him. When he pushed her away angrily, she felt the cold sting of rejection before the sudden realisation hit that she had been lied to, that Clara had played her, and she felt her anger flare. 

“She wouldn’t have wanted that!” he all but shouted, stalking around the console. “It’s never been like that, we’ve never… Oh.” Realisation dawned on him and he felt hope flood his being, wiping his eyes and almost smiling. “Oh, Clara, that was clever… she’s cleverer than you, Clary, she lied to you and you believed her… you’ve done something to her, but if she lied to you, then she’s still alive, you’ve still got her somewhere, because Clara Oswald wouldn’t leave me a suicide note if she was going to send me a message like that.” he advanced on Clary menacingly. “Where is she?” he asked her, his hand poised over a button on the console she had never noticed before. “What have you done with her?” 

“She’s weak,” Clary found herself spitting. “She’s not even half the person I am; half the person you deserve.”

“She’s my friend!” he countered furiously, his eyes full of fire. “She was brave enough to create you, to save me, so she’s brave enough to fight you. _Where is she?_ ”

Clary snarled, reaching for her gun, but the Doctor was faster, grabbing her hands and plunging them into the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits, bypassing the need for any further verbal sparring. “Take us there,” he implored the TARDIS, and it beeped in response, contracting around Clary’s fingers painfully. “C’mon, old girl, you can do it. Find her…” 

The time rotor shuddered into life and Clary fought as hard as she could, sending sparks up from the console as she yanked her hands free and pulled out her gun, aiming it steadily at the Doctor’s head.

“Gonna shoot me, are you?” he asked. “What are your reflexes like? Can you shut me down quick enough?” 

“Silence.” She commanded, but he only laughed coldly, crossing the floor to her in three paces.

“We’ve landed.” He stated simply, pushing the barrel aside easily. “So I’m going to find my friend.”

“Doctor!” she threatened, but he took no heed and he stepped outside, into the cool darkness of Clara’s makeshift cell.

Clara stirred, barely daring to hope. “Doctor?” she asked as he approached, looking up at him with eyes so full of suffering he felt his hearts stutter before fury filled him, ideas of revenge entering his mind as he took in the sight of what Clary had done to his Impossible Girl.

“It’s over, Clara. I’m here to take you home.” He assured her gently, lifting her into his arms as Clary stepped out of the TARDIS. 

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said triumphantly, closing the doors behind her and watching as the blue box dematerialised. “It’s just the three of us, Doctor. No box. No backup. No running. I really didn’t want to have to do this.”

She cocked the gun and aimed it squarely at Clara’s head.

“Are you ready to watch her die?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL the darkness this chapter, so, as ever, trigger warnings for abuse and violence.

“Clary…” the Doctor’s tone was placating and quiet, as he laid Clara tenderly back on her filthy cot, moving so that he was between her prone form and Clary’s weapon. He held up his hands submissively, taking in the darkened room as he spoke and wondering how Clary could be this cruel. “What does this achieve? What do you get out of this?”

Clary laughed harshly, her eyes cold as ice, not lowering her gun but instead watching the Doctor down the length of the barrel. “I get to be her. Not an echo, not a splinter, but the true Clara. I am nobody’s copy, nobody’s creation. I am my own person.”

“But killing Clara won’t make it so,” the Doctor said carefully, his eyes gentle as he tried to reason with her, to make her see sense. “You can’t take her place; you can’t _become_ her.”

“Yes I can. I can and I _have_ : I’ve been doing it for weeks and no one has been any the wiser.” Clary snapped, her hand trembling a little with the force of her anger. “I can have that life. I can be the Prime.”

“But you wouldn’t _be_ Clara Prime,” the Doctor rationalised, not moving from his place between the two women, still using his body as a shield. “You’d be yourself, living as her. That isn’t the same thing.”

“ _Yes it is,_ ” Clary snarled, her knuckles tightening on the grip of the gun as she brought a second hand up to conceal the shaking. “But first, she needs to die, Doctor. You know that’ll only happen anyway, you know how reckless she is. It will be a merciful death when I do it. She won’t suffer.”

“I’m not going to stand aside and let her die, Clary!” the Doctor said angrily, his hands balling into fists. “She’s saved me a thousand times over; I’m not going to let you kill her!”

“Saved you?” Clary asked, her face curling up into a smirk that the Doctor couldn’t interpret. “Well, she won’t be doing that any longer." 

“Yes she _will_ ,” the Doctor argued. “Because I’m going to save her, and we’re going to walk out of this together. You are _not_ going to kill her.”

“Oh, I will.” Clary sneered, allowing pride to creep into her voice. “But she’s just the final piece of the puzzle. You won’t be being saved by any of them, any of her filthy little echoes. They’re gone.”

The Doctor’s blood ran cold as he grasped the full implications of Clary’s words, began to understand the scale of what she had done. “You didn’t…” he stammered, words failing him. “You… how?”

“Well, it rather depended on my mood.” Clary said airily, pretending to consider the question. “Some of them I stabbed. A few I poisoned. There was one that I smothered. A few I…” 

“No.” he held up a hand, silencing her, his face full of grief for the many Claras he had lost throughout time and space. “I don’t want to know how you _killed_ them. I want to know how you _found_ them. How you managed to cross time and space without me, without any help. It shouldn’t have been possible.” 

“Oh, do keep up.” Clary rolled her eyes at him. “I’m the Impossible Girl. But still, you honestly thought I could do this alone? Oh no. I had help. I had help from the best of the best.”

“Who?” the Doctor asked in desperation, advancing towards her, his voice controlled but his eyes betraying the turmoil he was feeling as guilt and angst ran through him, torturing his twin hearts. “Who helped you?” 

“Oh, Doctor. You’re being very, very slow.” She said critically, lowering her gun to her hip and raising her eyebrows. “Who do you think?”

“Name them!” he commanded, his patience wearing thin, and Clary laughed, enjoying pushing his buttons as he tried to delay the inevitable.

“Missy. Of course.” She watched the blood drain from his face as he took in her words. “She proved to be _most_ useful.”

“Clary… you have to understand that she’s not… whatever she’s promised you, it’s a lie, she’s just using you,” he pleaded. “She’s just using you to get to me.” 

“ _Using_ me? She loves me.” Clary said coldly, her eyes hardening. The Doctor laughed a high, cold laugh without mirth, affixing her with a pitying gaze.

“Love? She isn’t capable of love. She may have seduced you, but whatever she said… she’s a hypnotist, Clary, she’s got you under her spell, but I can help you break free.” He promised, holding out a hand to her but she swatted it aside carelessly, ignoring his words.

“She _loves_ me.” Clary repeated. “She helped me to realise my true purpose, because she _loves_ me, and she wants me to be the best I can be.” 

“She wants to use you as her puppet! This has nothing to do with love and everything about getting to me!” the Doctor was shouting now, his arms gesticulating wildly, and he was as surprised as Clary was when a soft voice behind him spoke. 

“I loved you, Clary,” Clara whispered, her voice raw with emotion and grating from lack of use. She had no tears left to cry, her body and soul too broken to permit the luxury of crying, and so she let her words roll from her mouth like the tears she yearned to cathartically shed. “I did, I honestly did, but she’s lied to you… I just, I don’t care what you’ve done, please, I just want things to be like they were before.”

“Silence,” Clary ordered, advancing half a step towards Clara with her hand raised menacingly, watching as her double cowered away automatically. “You know they cannot. I _will_ kill you.”

“Go on then.” Clara said with finality, raising her chin defiantly, her eyes devoid of hope, her heart desperate for the mercy of a good death. “Do it.”

Clary raised the gun again, her fingers curling around the trigger lovingly as she gazed down at Clara’s face, enjoying the knowledge that soon she would be unique once more. “Prepare to say goodbye,” she said triumphantly, and as she cocked the pistol the Doctor spoke up for a final time, desperately trying to halt the course of events that had been set in motion.

“You know, if you kill Clara, I won’t take you with me again. Your life as the Prime will be incomplete, because you won’t be travelling with me.” he informed Clary, praying it would be enough to change her mind, but she only shrugged, her eyes wide with hatred.

“I’ve got nothing left to lose, then,” she said nonchalantly and fired without hesitation. 

Clara closed her eyes and waited for the pain to blossom, waited for the replaying of her life that she had been taught to expect, but instead she felt nothing – no wound, no change in state, no release from the broken body she had grown wearily accustomed to. She opened her eyes slightly in confusion, taking in her surroundings: the same room, still with Clary stood before her, the same four walls she had mapped countless times as she prayed for an escape. She knew this version of Clary well enough to know that she wouldn’t have missed, and so she looked around, noticing only then the body on the floor, a crimson stain spreading across the maroon jacket with damning finality.

“Doctor?” she said, panic growing in her voice as she watched his hand move to examine the wound, his fingers coming away slick with blood, and she propelled herself off the bed with the last vestiges of her strength and fell to her knees beside him, pressing her hand over the wound but knowing already what would come next. At last, the tears began to fall, tears she had not known she had within her, splashing onto the velvet of his coat, as she squeezed his hand tightly, steeling herself for the moment she had to let go.

“Clara,” he said softly, his voice gruff with the pain. “Don’t… don’t cry… we had a good innings, didn’t we? It’s time to go. You have to let me go.”

“No…” she murmured, her voice husky, bowing her head over his body as the light left his eyes, her heart constricting even as she anticipated what would come next, and it was then that she remembered Clary, pulling her hands away from the Doctor’s as she stood. Turning, she took in a sight that cut her more deeply than the Doctor’s pain: Clary was weeping in contrition, guilt twisting her features beyond recognition, as realisation dawned as to what she had done.

“I didn’t… I never…” she mumbled, her lipstick streaking across her face like an angry wound as she wiped her tears. “She said… she said I wasn’t to…” the hand holding the smoking gun turned upwards as though controlled by a ghost puppeteer, and Clara wanted to act, wanted to propel herself forwards and stop her, but she was frozen to the spot, condemned to watch as Clary put the muzzle into her mouth and pulled the trigger in one smooth motion.

As the Doctor’s body exploded with a golden light, Clara screamed, the rage and pain of a thousand hours of suffering overwhelming her as she fell to her knees on the concrete floor, tears tracking down her face as she let the pain overwhelm her, ceasing the repression of all that she had been trying to overcome. She screamed for what felt like hours as she contemplated all she had lost: herself, Clary, and now her Doctor, all of them gone, leaving her behind them, unsure of who she was and her place in the world.

“Clara?” the voice was soft and unrecognisable, and Clara fell silent, looking up in shock and taking in the sight before her with confusion. Soft, flowing chestnut hair, almond shaped eyes of the deepest brown, and curves that filled out the old body’s clothes in awkward ways. “Clara, I’m sorry.”

“Clary…” she stammered, her eyes falling on the immobile form on the floor before returning to take in the new Doctor, feeling her heart constrict painfully. “Clary’s dead and you’re a… you’re a…”

“A woman." 

Both their heads snapped up to take in the woman framed in the doorway, grinning mischievously and twirling a parasol in her fingers.

“And a damned good looking one at that.” Missy continued with a seductive smile. “I tell you what, Oswald. I’ll fight you for her.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh what a cliffhanger...!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so, I realised I probably should've added a small detail to my notes at the end of last chapter. The new Doctor is NOT a Clara lookalike. When writing her, I based her on Gemma Arterton in terms of physical appearance, so I hope that clears that up!
> 
> Trigger warning for mental trauma in this chapter. 
> 
> Also, heads up, this is a long one.

“Missy,” the Doctor’s tone was surprisingly level as she contemplated Missy carefully. “Seems we’ve both gone for the upgrade, then.”

“So it would seem, dear. But my, isn’t this body young? You’re practically a child... I _would_ feel like a cradle snatcher, but I just don’t like sharing.” Missy cooed, stepping forwards to caress the Doctor’s cheek lightly and looking hurt as she flinched away. “I think the puppy has the same problem.”

“Puppy?” the Doctor asked, her brow furrowing. “What puppy?”

“The little puppy that held your hand, silly!” Missy trilled, indicating Clara with a wave of her hand. “Isn’t she just adorable? It’s a shame about the other one and all the mess. Still, it would’ve happened anyway, I suppose, so she saved me the time.”

“Lies,” Clara said fiercely, standing up and clenching her fists, trying to fight the feeling of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. “I saw her… you did something to her. She wouldn’t have done that.” 

“I didn’t _do_ anything, I just talked, and she listened. I can’t help how suggestible humans are.” Missy assured her, shrugging with a playful expression. “I mean, I could plant the idea in your head to pick that gun up…” she continued, her voice soft and oddly appealing to Clara, and found herself reaching for the gun, picking it up, enjoying the weight of it in her hand as she turned it over, feeling the urge, inexplicably, to put it to her own head… 

“Missy,” came the Doctor’s stern reprimand, her eyes flashing with anger. “Missy, stop it.” 

“Stop what?” Missy asked innocently, watching Clara hold the weapon passively, her eyes unfocused. “I’m just playing with her.”

“ _Stop_.” The Doctor reiterated furiously. “Clara, put it down. It’s OK, put it down.” She stood before her companion and took the gun from her, watching as the trance broke and Clara shook her head, trying to clear it of the curious, melodic words Missy had used. “She’s a hypnotist, she got inside your head, but you’re OK.” 

“Is that what she did to Clary?” Clara whispered, her eyes filling with tears, and the Doctor nodded sadly, her hearts breaking as tears poured down Clara’s cheeks. “So it wasn’t ever really her doing any of this? It was Missy?”

“Goodness me, she’s got slow in her old age, hasn’t she?” Missy said cattily, her eyes gleeful. “Yes, it was me, she just blathered on about how much she loved you and cried a lot, so I gave her a bit of a revamp. It was quite an improvement, I think. Sorry about the fail-safe though.” 

“What fail-safe?” Clara asked, her tone stricken as she looked to the Doctor for clarification. “What does she mean?”

“Well, I couldn’t have her hurting my bezzie mate, could I? And I may have forgotten to mention regeneration to her… so… well, she was always a glutton for punishment, so I may have installed a self-destruct program.” Missy’s voice was light and airy, a mocking undertone of repentance bleeding through. 

Clara lunged for Missy, and the Doctor, still unsure of her new body, grabbed for her and missed. “I hate you!” Clara screamed, raising her hands to Missy’s throat. “ _You_ did this, you killed her, you didn’t need to… you never had to…”

“Oh but I did,” Missy said distastefully, pushing Clara to the floor easily with her parasol and pressing the point into her chest to keep her there. “I had to protect _her_ ,” she gestured to the Doctor in an all-encompassing way. “Didn’t I?”

“What do you mean, protect me?” the Doctor asked, her eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen your idea of protecting me. It hurt.”

“I had to protect you from the puppy, didn’t I?” Missy said, her tone indicating her frustration at having to explain herself, and she rolled her eyes. “Because even puppies have teeth, and look at her. She doesn’t look like much, but she makes you dangerous.” 

“Dangerous? She’s my friend, Missy!” the Doctor protested, looking surprised by the shrillness of her new voice. “Is this you being jealous? Is that what this is about?”

“Me? Jealous?” Missy’s tone was incredulous as she looked the Doctor’s new body up and down approvingly. “Maybe a little,” she conceded unwillingly. “But I want to protect you. I’ve seen how far she pushes you. You’re going to burn galaxies together… I thought I’d just do a little selective editing.”

“You changed history!” the Doctor shouted, her voice rising an octave, and she frowned to herself, wondering if that could be fixed. She wasn’t used to sounding so high-pitched.

“To keep you safe! With her gone, you won’t self-destruct!” Missy countered, raising her handheld and pointing it at Clara lazily. “I’d have got rid of the other one in the end anyway, it was just a temporary fix.”

“So you lied to her?” the Doctor asked, snatching the device, her tone cold. “You gave her false hope?”

“It wasn’t _lying,_ it was motivation. She was a liability.” Missy said with a small shrug.

“She was my _girlfriend._ ” Clara protested from the floor, sitting up weakly, and Missy scoffed in contempt.

“You humans are as changeable as the weather. I’m sure you’ll find a nice new one.” She assured Clara in a sickly-sweet tone of condescension, reaching down and patting her head. 

“I don’t _want_ a new one!” Clara said more loudly, standing up and advancing on Missy aggressively. “I wanted _Clary._ And you took her from me.”

“Oh, stop whinging. I would let you be with her, but the Doctor took my burning up device. I’m sure I could use my umbrella instead; would you like me to try?” Missy asked with a benevolent smile, anticipating her reaction.

“You _bitch_ ,” Clara spat, her head spinning abruptly as adrenaline coursed through her system for the first time in months, overwhelming her capabilities. “You…” was all she managed as she crumpled to the floor, her knees hitting the cool stone with a sickening crack as she fell, looking almost serene as unconsciousness washed over her. 

“Clara,” the Doctor said with concern, kneeling beside her and fumbling through the now-unfamiliar pockets of a jacket that was both hers and not, her fingers probing for the thing she needed. Extracting it with a small flourish, she scooped Clara up with difficulty, already missing the height and strength of her last body, before clenching her fist around the object in her palm and trying to focus her mind.

“You know, I’ll miss the magician look,” Missy mused, surveying them both with a look that may have been sadness. “And the eyebrows.” 

“Well, if it’s magician you’re after…” the Doctor said with a small smile, sensing the familiar noise before she heard it. “You’re going to _love_ my next trick.”

The TARDIS materialised around them and she felt abruptly at ease as she shifted Clara in her arms a little and headed for the medical bay, laying her tenderly down on a bed and scanning her. “Oh Clara,” she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. “My Clara…” She laid her hands lightly on Clara’s temples, willing the regeneration energy she no longer needed to flow through her palms, and she watched as golden light streamed across Clara’s skin, erasing the dark shadows of bruises, knitting skin back together and filling out the hollows where weight had melted off her. As the glow faded, the Doctor took in Clara’s unconscious form with a small sigh, knowing that the emotional scars would be far harder to heal, knowing that no amount of regeneration energy would provide a quick fix for Clara after all she had been through. 

She was unwilling to leave Clara alone for so much as a second, so despite her body’s protestations, she lifted her up again and carried her carefully back to the console room, laying her down in an armchair as she typed in the familiar coordinates with fingers that felt gangly and awkward. She knew that she needed to rest, knew that she had little time before her body succumbed to sleep, and so she carried Clara out into the comforting surroundings of her flat and tucked her up in bed gently, fetching a pitcher of water and plate of biscuits from the kitchen in a way she dimly recalled having done once before. 

Removing her boots and the too-big coat, she contemplated her old self’s choice of clothing, shedding everything and rooting around in Clara’s drawers until she found an old t-shirt and pair of pyjama trousers, pulling them on and laying on top of the duvet beside her companion. As an afterthought, she reached over and took her hand, falling asleep with their fingers intertwined, Clara’s single pulse beating a steady rhythm against her double one.

She was jolted awake by Clara’s scream, instantly alert and on her guard, flicking on the light and trying to offer reassurance. “Hey, hey, it’s me, it’s OK, it’s the Doctor.” She soothed, her hands holding Clara’s reassuringly, but it was then she noticed how her eyes looked straight through her and realised that her companion was having a nightmare, trapped somewhere beyond the realm of the conscious. “Clara? Clara, it’s a dream. It’s just a dream.” 

Clara blinked hard a few times, her eyes focussing on the Doctor with confusion, then realisation, then confusion again. “Why are you…”

“I’m not leaving you alone, Clara.” She said firmly. “You need to rest, I need to rest, so don’t argue.”

To her amazement, Clara only nodded obediently and lay back down, keeping hold of the Doctor’s hand as she curled up. “Goodnight,” she whispered, yawning widely. “Sweet dreams, Doctor.”

“Sweet dreams,” the Doctor responded, waiting until she was certain that Clara was deeply asleep before allowing herself to doze off. When she opened her eyes again, morning sun filtered through the curtains, and she extricated herself from the Clara’s grip with difficulty, padding on silent feet back to the TARDIS in search of new clothes.

When Clara woke, she found a cup of tea beside her and was momentarily disconcerted, sitting up and reaching for the mug, noticing only then that the Doctor was sat in the corner of the room, watching her with a small, shy smile.

“Morning,” the new Doctor – not _her_ Doctor, not yet – said quietly, her voice still unsure of itself after the angry force of the Scottish accent that had preceded it. “What do you think?” She stood up and twirled slowly, letting Clara take in her careful choice of clothes: a camel-coloured trench coat, unbuttoned to reveal a deep navy dress, the gold watch that Clara loved so much resting just above her sternum on a long gold chain, and then…

Clara frowned. “Converse?” she asked, her voice still gravelly. “You’re going with Converse?”

“What’s wrong with them?!” the Doctor asked, pointing a toe. “I like them. Not so big on the bra. The TARDIS thought that was particularly funny.”

Clara attempted a smile, sipping her tea. “I’ll bet.” She paused awkwardly for a few seconds. “You don’t have to stay.” She assured her. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” the Doctor said simply, sitting beside her on the bed and giving her what she hoped was a stern look. “You don’t have to lie to me, Clara.” She reached for Clara’s hand reassuringly but the other woman flinched away, knocking her tea over the duvet but hardly noticing. “Clara?” she asked, her voice full of concern. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t… I don’t…” Clara mumbled, looking down at the growing stain. “Being touched… I don’t…”

“It’s alright,” she said soothingly, holding her hands up. “No touching, that’s OK.” 

“Last night… that was different, just not…” Clara stammered, and the Doctor nodded. 

“It’s OK, Clara. You don’t have to explain. Is it alright to take the duvet off? I don’t want you to burn yourself.” 

Clara mumbled her assent and so she peeled the duvet carefully back, stripping the cover off it inexpertly and bundling it into the machine. After a few moment of consideration, she sonicked the controls and then returned to Clara, finding her curled into a ball, rocking softly and muttering the same word, over and over. “ _Dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty…”_  

“Clara?” she asked gently, her hearts breaking as she took in the sight of her once-bright companion, reduced to a pale ghost of her former self. “Clara, would you like me to run you a bath? Would that help?” 

The other girl looked up at her, her eyes full of terror, and began to hyperventilate, her breaths coming in short gasps that didn’t quite fill her lungs. “Not the… no… not the… please…”

“OK, OK, it’s alright, no baths.” The Doctor sat back on her haunches beside the bed, and it was then she noticed the repetitive motion of Clara’s hands as she scratched at her own skin over and over, leaving it angry and inflamed. “Clara, I think that this… I think this is out of my area of expertise,” she admitted. “Is it alright to call your family?”

Clara’s lack of response was the only confirmation she needed, and it was with trepidation that she typed the number in on her phone and made the call she had always dreaded.

 

~/~/~/~

 

The Doctor was putting the finishing touches to the new desktop when the phone rang. She knew immediately who it would be, but her hearts leapt in unison as she dove for the phone, brushing aside a pile of tools and the remains of the TARDIS manual in her excitement, hardly noticing as they crashed to the floor. Clara had rung her weekly since that fateful day, offering small updates on her counselling and her medication in a subdued, dull tone that made her soul ache with sadness. She picked up the handset and pressed it to her ear, forcing a cheery tone. “Clara!” 

“Doctor,” came the restrained voice at the other end. “Clary’s funeral is today.”

“I…” she was momentarily lost for words. “Do you want to go?”

“If you’ll come with me, yes.” Clara’s tone was pleading and full of tears. “Please.”

“Did your therapist…”

“Damn what my therapist said! I want to go!” Clara said angrily, and the Doctor noted the strength of her anger with a small degree of surprise, unused to Clara’s emotions of late.

“Then I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.” she said mildly, caught between wanting to soothe Clara’s temper and wondering whether the outburst showed that she was regaining some of her former self’s fire.

“I’m ready now.” Clara huffed, and the Doctor sighed in resignation. 

“Fine, I’ll pick you up _now_ then.” She concurred, pulling the handbrake and watching the newly refurbished time rotor rise and fall in time with her heartbeat, trepidation consuming her at the thought of seeing Clara for the first time in weeks. She had kept tabs on her friend from a careful distance, of course, but she hadn’t seen her properly since that last day together in her flat, and she was unsure how she should act. She sighed again, approaching the doors nervously and opening them only to be greeted by a blonde figure she hardly recognised. 

“Doctor,” said the blonde girl in a dimly familiar voice, and she felt her eyes widen as she recognised Clara through the disguise, taking the sight of her in and trying to decide whether she looked any better, whether it was her imagination that Clara seemed older.

“I like the wig,” she managed eventually. “How have you been?”

“OK, I guess,” Clara said quietly, her usual exuberance dulled by the cocktail of medication. “You?”

“About the same,” the Doctor concurred, smiling slightly. “Where are we headed?”

“Back to London,” she informed him somewhat more confidently, holding out a printed announcement. “It won’t be anything fancy… I just… dad took my debit card, so I can’t go there myself, and I can’t go with any of them.” Clara’s eyes filled with tears as she implored her desperately, and the Doctor ached to embrace her, to offer some degree of comfort, but knowing she couldn’t.

“Your carriage awaits,” she gestured to the TARDIS grandly and allowed Clara to step inside first, watching her take in the newly designed space and awaiting the usual, inevitable quip.

“You’ve redecorated,” Clara began uncertainly. “I… actually like it." 

“Well, that makes a change,” she responded, her smile growing as she typed in the coordinates and set them into flight, watching Clara’s face in the soft amber light, the usual wonder lacking from her muted expression, the old shine missing from her eyes. Stepping outside after landing, she longed to take Clara’s arm as they crossed the churchyard and entered the cool interior of the chapel, but she held her arms by her sides, noting the depressing emptiness of the rows of pews, just a few mourners seated at the front in a small huddle. Slipping into a seat with Clara, the Doctor tried to listen with rapt attention to the vicar’s droning words, attempting to offer Clara some privacy as she wept silently for all she had lost.

When the quiet sobs grew too much to bear, she looked down at her companion, feeling her hearts twist with empathy and offering a handkerchief in lieu of a supportive hand to hold, Clara murmuring a thanks in response. They left immediately after the service, both keen to avoid the prying questions of the other funeral-goers, and wandered slowly through the churchyard, Clara still dabbing her eyes occasionally as she looked steadily at the floor, her curiosity long since gone. When she stopped beside a gravestone, the Doctor meandered on a little way before she realised that she was alone, backtracking and following Clara’s line of sight.

An old, simple headstone loomed from below the branches of a yew tree, faded and dirtied with the passage of time, but the name upon it was still legible in dark letters: _Clara Oswin Oswald. Remember me, for we shall meet again. Born November 23 1886. Died December 24 1892._

“Of course,” Clara whispered. “It had to be here…” She knelt before the headstone and traced the lettering with her fingers, looking up at the Doctor as she did so, tears spilling unbidden down her cheeks. “She saved you, didn’t she? This one?” 

“Yes,” the Doctor assured her, her throat constricting painfully at the memory. “And she led me to you.”

Clara smiled a tiny smile then, her mouth hardly moving and the light not reaching her eyes, but it was enough for the Doctor. “Then here is a good place for Clary.”


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here is the final part of this fic! Thank you for all your comments and feedback, they are much appreciated.
> 
> The spinoff to this story, which occurs simultaneously to the epilogue, can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5925334), and a sequel is also forthcoming.
> 
> I am also accepting prompts over at my [Tumblr](http://universe-on-her-shoulders.tumblr.com), so please keep me busy with those!

When the phone rang for the first time after the funeral, the Doctor was drifting in the Horsehead Nebula, an acoustic guitar in her hands as she attempted to connect with the memories of her previous self and channel her feelings into song. She strummed out a few bars that seemed dimly familiar before the shrill peal of the phone interrupted her stream of consciousness and she jumped, setting the guitar aside carefully and crossing to the console. She answered with trepidation, her hearts thudding painfully in her chest as a thousand different scenarios crossed her mind. “Hello?”

“Doctor.” Clara said simply, her tone still reserved and distant, and she felt her stomach sink at the thought of what they were doing to her friend to dim her brightness so dramatically.

“Clara,” she responded with false cheer, resting her head in her hands against the cool metal of the central column. “How are things?”

“They’re OK,” Clara’s tone was measured, and she could tell she was chewing her lip in the way she so often did when she was nervous. “My counselling is nearly done, they saying I’m doing well enough to stop.”

“Oh,” the Doctor said with surprise, her heart stuttering momentarily. “That’s… good.”

“Yeah.” Clara agreed automatically. “They said… they’ve told me I have to push myself, so I wondered if… could we go on a trip? Please?”

“Of course!” the Doctor felt her mood lift immediately, cupping the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she set the TARDIS into flight. “I’ll be with you any… second… _now._ ”

Clara opened the doors and entered the TARDIS tentatively, her entire demeanour so different from her former stride and her old confidence, looking up to the Doctor with a face that seemed world-weary and hollow eyed. “Hey,” she said softly, and the Doctor smiled at her warmly.

“Hey yourself,” she grinned. “I was thinking… I was hanging out in the Horsehead Nebula and I know how much you love it. We could sit and watch the view. Just like old times.”

“That sounds nice,” Clara assented, returning the Doctor’s smile shyly but not quite meeting her gaze. “I’d like that.”

The Doctor flicked a switch then threw the doors open, watching Clara’s expression light up the slightest amount as she took in the familiar swirling colours of the star system outside, iridescent pinks and greens that filled the horizon as far as the eye could see, contrasting with the black depths of the surrounding universe.

She sank down in the doorway with her legs hanging out, patting the space beside her, Clara coming to sit beside her apprehensively, her eyes fixed on the intricacies of the nebula, the stars reflecting in her gaze and filling her irises with light.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “I’d forgotten. I thought I might have made it all up.”

“I’m the one who’s a storyteller,” the Doctor teased, nudging her knee with her own. “You were always the down to earth one. Literally.”

“I might be more down to earth soon.” Clara admitted hesitantly. “They’re changing my doses. Should be a bit less of a zombie.”

The Doctor didn’t have time to respond before Clara put an arm around her, leaning her cheek against the soft fabric of her dress and sighing softly. With her free hand, she found the Doctor’s and meshed their fingers together, closing her eyes and listening to the twin beat of the Time Lady’s hearts.

“I’ll need your help, you know,” she said softly. “It’ll be hard.”

“You wouldn’t be the Impossible Girl if anything about you was easy,” the Doctor joked self-consciously, stroking Clara’s back slowly and reassuringly in a way she had once seen Danny do.

“Thank you,” Clara whispered, her voice trembling, and the Doctor pressed her lips to her dark hair affectionately.

“What for?” she asked, and Clara looked up, her eyes wet with tears as she searched for the words.

“For helping me to get over myself. In every sense.”


End file.
